Bumbling FBI a fitting antagonist for TV's 'good guys'
By Frazier Moore
Associated Press
The FBI as plainclothes Keystone Cops? Are they G-men or "Gee, We Blew It Again" men?
The bureau's image is pretty dismal these days, duly reinforced by the latest blunder: misplacing documents whose 11th-hour discovery delayed the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
Before that, there was the FBI agent charged with having sold secrets to Moscow for 15 years. A government scientist became the victim of a botched bureau probe. A man who had spent 30 years in prison for murder was cleared after a judge learned the FBI had sat on evidence supporting his claim of innocence.
And all this in just in the past year.
But the worse the bureau looks in real life, the more ably it serves the cause of television drama in the role of bumbling adversaries of TV's law-enforcement heroes.
Consider "The X-Files," where the FBI seems more intent on hiding the truth, especially from renegades like Mulder and Scully, than on busting evil-doers.
And don't forget the FBI eavesdroppers on "The Sopranos," repeatedly confounded in their effort to bring down Tony and his crew.
Want more evidence? Just look at recent episodes of three different cop series, each of which cast the FBI as tax-supported heavies.
On NBC's May 9 "Law & Order," a murder investigation stumbles when NYPD detectives Briscoe and Green realize their suspect has an alibi from a pair of FBI agents. But is his alibi legit, or is the bureau shielding this lowlife from arrest?
"Could be these two agents are using him as their own personal C.I. (confidential informant)," ventures assistant district attorney McCoy (Sam Waterston).
But how to pry this mook out of the agents' grip?
"Make sure you don't step on any sore toes," Lt. Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson) reminds her men. "You know how sensitive the feds are."
Ha! That's a TV FBI agent for you: always getting his nose out of joint.
Apart from a few token women, TV agents are all the same: sinewy, laconic, tightly coiled alpha males.
One other thing: They suspect everyone, especially the good guys.
On last month's season finale of CBS' "The District," Police Chief Mannion finds that he's being shadowed by the FBI in his probe of a Mafia hit — and, even more galling, that the agents think he's in cahoots with the mobsters.
"What am I, a perp?" growls Mannion (Craig T. Nelson). "Are you trying to squeeze me, agent?"
"We're trying to HELP you, chief."
Which makes Mannion only madder. "You're gonna help me like you did the people at Waco? The people at Ruby Ridge? You gonna help me like Richard Jewell? I don't NEED your help!"
Over on "C.S.I.," Las Vegas forensics investigator Grissom doesn't need their help, either. Yet on the season finale of this CBS drama, an FBI agent horns in on Grissom's serial-murder case when an arrest doesn't come fast enough.
"Three women dead 'cause you couldn't get the job done," the G-man sneers at Grissom (William Petersen). "The investigation will run through me. All rivers run through Rome, so to speak."
Of course, the undaunted Grissom goes ahead and solves the murders in his own painstaking way — even after he is yanked off the case for not following the agent's bum leads.
Then the FBI is handed all the credit. "We couldn't have done it without you," declares the county sheriff who brought the FBI in.
In real life, the FBI is mostly made up of "standup, fabulous, dedicated people," insists "C.S.I." executive producer Ann Donohue. But interagency conflicts make for good crime drama, and when TV producers need a world-class antagonist, "usually you go to the FBI."
"And with the stuff that's been going on in the last year," Donohue said, the FBI as a disruptive force "gains an added ring of authenticity it wouldn't have had before."
So in real life just as on TV, the righteous sway of Efrem Zimbalist Jr. on his J. Edgar Hoover-endorsed drama "The FBI" is long absent from the schedule.
On the other hand, come fall, there will be three new drama series championing the CIA, which, not so long ago, was widely scorned by the public as the bete noire of law enforcement.
Maybe a sitcom is required to do the bureau justice.
