NTD Television is launching its first-ever original drama series. The 10-episode series called “A Good Cop” is inspired by true events. It follows the lives of three NYPD officers during the “defund the police” movement. But this show is about more than just policing.
Taylor Karin plays Elizabeth Fox, who she described as “an abolitionist-turned-rookie cop, which creates a really cool dichotomy.”
Ignacyo Matynia described his character Jaylen Daniels as “a straight-edge, honest guy that can’t be bought. He’s a police officer with integrity, with a strong moral compass. And throughout the series, the foundations for all of his beliefs that make him that great, trophy cop are tested.”
Producer James Orfanos said the show “delve[s] into corruption. Corruption is going to be a big part of it. ... Police have all this authority. Who watches the police, who polices the police, is one of the themes running through this show—and various levels of hierarchy of the government and how the police interact with it, how civilians interact with it, and what happens if people in power start to abuse that power or what are the checks that are there to control that.”
Cliff Lobrutto, who plays Captain Frank Romano, said his character makes “a discovery that is so incredible. It’s so outlandish that it affects emotionally the police that are working on it. And they become very motivated because of the content of this discovery to do things and go places that they wouldn’t ordinarily go.”
To make sure the scenes and what he was doing was authentic, writer and director David Chai did “research, research, research.”
Having former police officers, like Patrick Heraghty, among the cast members also helped.
“Ninety percent of the time I spent on set with ‘A Good Cop,’ I was with David. And we spoke a lot about police situations. We think alike,” said Heraghty. “And he really did his homework. He did a lot of research. He interviewed a lot of police officers. He was interviewing me daily.”
On the themes and values presented in the show, Orfanos says one of them is “sticking to your values in the face of extreme adversity and danger.”
“‘A Good Cop’ explores the themes of right and wrong, justice,” said Chai. “It really tries to not tell you what to think about it, but have these characters that are part of the storyline go through different situations that test them and make them have to make difficult decisions. And that’s really how you discover what is a good cop or a good person is what kind of choices do they make when they’re tested.”
Karin said, “‘A Good Cop’ is actually a questions mark. It’s not an exclamation point. It’s not like a ‘Yes! We did it!’ It’s ‘What does that mean? What does it mean to you? Does that feel like a fantasy? Do you feel protected? And how do you feel watching something like this?’ It’s a conversation starter.”
Chai spoke about what the show brings to the conversation on policing. “What you see on the news or social media is that one person says, ‘I hate police, they’re murderers.’ [Another] person says, ‘Well, I have people, I have friends that are police and they’re not that,’ and then these people just never can get past that and talk about it in a more logical, rational way,” he said.
“When you have a story-based way to explore the issue, I’m not really looking for a black and white answer. I’m just like, well, these police or these characters that happen to be police, in these situations, let’s see what happens. And as we follow them, we kind of can understand why they make their choices, even if you don’t agree with it. So it’s putting you inside the shoes of these police officers, and I think that’s the power of story versus just fighting it out on social media.”
“What I love about the show is that it has such a diverse storyline for every character,” said Deirdre Koczur. “They’re all thinking differently, they’re all going through something different. They all have different perspectives on life, and having that diversity I think is going to be extremely relatable to a lot of people, so hopefully, it'll bridge that gap.”
Matynia added, “I think ‘A Good Cop’ will force people to step outside of their comfort zone and test out a point of view that they’re not used to necessarily believing in.
“Like I always say, there’s three sides of a story: there’s your side, there’s my side, and then somewhere in the middle, there’s the truth. And I think what this show does is we try to step inside that middle area and find the truth and present it to the audience in a way where they can really understand and resonate with the characters.”
“There are a lot of cop shows but this does have a unique perspective,” said Jermaine Wells. “You'll learn things that you probably did not know before.”
