Airdate: COPS L.A.C.
Nine new police drama will go head to head with the cops from Rush.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under Programming
Nine has announced its new drama COPS L.A.C, will premiere on Thursday, September 2nd, at 8.30pm -pitting it head to head with TEN’s Rush.
The 13 part police drama, first revealed by TV Tonight last year, centres on Seaview Local Area Command, a busy metropolitan police station in Sydney. Its cast includes Kate Ritchie, Martin Dingle Wall, Gary Sweet, and Denise Roberts.
“COPS L.A.C was inspired by Local Area Command centres which are the face of modern policing,” said Jo Horsburgh, Head of Nine Drama and Executive Producer of COPS L.A.C.
“The smaller police stations of the past have been absorbed into these larger area command centres where 200 to 400 police and civilians work. All these people have to balance their personal and professional lives and sometimes this gets a little messy.
“Like any cop show, COPS L.A.C tells crime stories with mystery and intrigue, and in our case the plot unfolds with an equal focus on the uniformed officers and the detectives. There’s also a strong whodunit element and an underpinning of good cop black humour to the series.”
It is the network’s first in-house drama project since Canal Road.
At the frontline of law and order, the brave uniformed officers and plainclothes detectives at Seaview fight everything from murder and organised crime to diamond smuggling and identity theft on their own turf, as well as tracking missing persons. These cops are the backbone of law enforcement, shouldering the responsibility and the stress the badge demands.
The twists and turns in COPS L.A.C will keep audiences guessing while the cases these cops work on unfold one piece of evidence, one unwilling witness and one lying suspect at a time.
This is a competitive, pressure-cooker policing environment where the line between work and personal relationships is easily blurred. Most officers do their job with professionalism, altruism and a healthy dose of humour. They are focused, ambitious and competitive. Most are honest. Some aren’t. At least not always.
Keeping the police team in line is their boss, Superintendant Jack Finch (Gary Sweet). His crime manager and head of detectives is Detective Inspector Diane Pappas (Denise Roberts). She oversees the crime-solving duo of Detective Senior Constable Samantha Cooper (Kate Ritchie) and Detective Senior Constable Rhys Llewellyn (Martin Dingle Wall).
Senior Sergeant Graeme Sinclair (Roy Billing) is responsible for managing the daily workload of the general duties officers. Senior Constable Nathan Holt (Tom O’Sullivan) and Senior Constable Roxanne Perez (Ria Vandervis) have the added responsibility of mentoring and training two probationary constables fresh out of the academy – Priscilla Smith (Kelly Paterniti) and Daniel Van Der Mark (Graeme Squires). Meanwhile Detective Senior Constable Matt “Matilda” Hilton (Damian de Montemas) is the Seaview command’s resident witty forensics expert.
At Seaview, it’s a tough and unpredictable job that takes all sorts. Some cops will succeed beyond their wildest expectations, others will fall by the wayside.
This is the story of passionate cops on the beat. The first ones at the crime scene. Savvy detectives marked by their gut instinct and tenacity. Naive recruits uncertain if they’ll make the grade. Daring undercover officers flirting with danger. Ambitious superintendents juggling politics with policing. And forensics experts with their hi-tech toys.
In COPS L.A.C there is more to their story than you think.
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- Tagged with Canal Road, Cops. L.A.C., Rush
30 Responses
This will flop instantly.
I liked Canal Road much more than The Strip (or ROS for that matter), I hope this one works why can’t they do a family drama like PTTR on Nine?
Sticking with Rush. Rush is a great show, Cops ABCD doesn’t look that exciting, and none of Nine’s Aussie shows have attracted me at all. It’s great to see so many Aussie programs on tv though.
Offspring wasn’t all it was cracked up to be either.
@ ryaneco I totally agree with you. RSO and Cops LAC would have been better suited back to back on Mondays.
I am also loyal to Rush, which I watch every week. Seems like most bloggers are the same. Very silly to put it against RUSH!
Eh I’ll being watching True Blood.
Promo : “there’s more to this job than a gun and a badge”……I lost intrest after that.
Wont be watching, appears quite lame.
Rush is not much competition. If this is any good it should easily out-rate the over-rated Rush. The characters in Rush are smug & unlikable
Not just two local shows against each other but two local cop shows against each other. Dumb.
was going to watch, but i’m not giving up Rush for channel 9 sh*t
Up against Rush, why do they insist on putting 2 local shows against each other?
Not sure if I’ll be watching, apart from Rush I’m getting board with local cop shows, haven’t watched RSO, City Homicide or Sea Patrol this season.
Wasn’t that the time slot for nine’s other non-underbelly cop show – The Strip? I don’t see this lasting.
Yeah I found Thurs to be a disappointing time slot!
Canal Road only bombed coz of bad treatment by 9 9.30 for 3 weeks then many timeslots and dates!
I will watch Rush and see how LAC goes…
Kate Ritchie is enough to make me watch!
Hmm I was going to check it out but I am loyal to Rush love the show so I won’t be switching to COPS L.A.C don’t know if I’ll bother PVRing it. Rescue Special Ops can’t have too much longer left anyway – just checked last episode of Rescue will air on Sept 20th like 2-3 weeks after COPS launch; don’t know why Nine didn’t just have double aussie drama on Monday nights for a few weeks? Move Rescue to 9.30 and premiere COPS in the 8.30 slot for the 3 weeks of just air a double premiere and double finale to fit in within ratings period! They do that with Underbelly.
I also disagree with airing Aussie drama head to head networks should want aussie shows to benefit no matter what network it airs on; its good for their own industry; Monday would have been perfect and would not be conflicting with another Aussie drama!
I would have rathered they put it up against that horrible Offspring show, then it probably would have rated really well
Now, it could be a hit, or it could be a miss. Rush won’t be significant competition, but I don’t see this show pulling 1.5 million a week either
Seaview Local Area Command – That’s a SLAC choice for a title isn’t it?
Cops LAC sounds like an exact copy of Rush.
Anyway, I’ll be sticking with Rush for as long as its on air, its brilliant.
It’s hardly a suicide attempt pitting it against Rush which has never had a decent audience and is hardly setting the ratings world on fire or winning any awards in the popularity stakes. Good move I say but only time will tell if it is in fact any good.
Soapy trash vs decent drama… hmmmm… think I know what I’ll be watching!
Rush has had 3 years to build a decent audience its hard to imagine people who watch Rush switiching to LAC
Nup, that’s when I watch Rush, and often PVRing something on ABC2, sorry Nine, bad decision. Should have made it on a Sunday night.
The Last Time Nine did a In-House Drama Production, Canal Road with a Swell Aussie and Kiwi Cast, It Bombed.
The more I think about it, I don’t think it would have been a good choice putting this on early in the week. It’s not something like Underbelly which is highly anticipated every year.
Are Ch 9 trying to pull a programming suicideattempt, by pitting Cops LAC against Ch 10’s Rush @ the same timeslot?.
Why didn’t put it on Sunday Night & move csi to 9.30pm?
What the flamin’ mongrels is Sally doing at Yabby Creek?