Edmonton police scrub short-lived reality series
Five weeks after the official launch of an experimental Internet series featuring Edmonton Police Service officers at work, reality series The Squad has been quietly cancelled after only two episodes.
A statement sent out by police on Friday said the decision to can the short-lived series was prompted by “feedback.”
Speaking to the media on Friday afternoon, deputy police chief Brian Simpson said the time and resources needed were also a factor in the May 17 decision to abandon the project.
“We’re looking at different ways to communicate with the community … ,” he said.
“It was tried, we learned some lessons from it, and we’re going to try some other things because it wasn’t all bad. Actually, a lot of it was very good.”
The Squad was launched in April with the intention of an initial 15-week season, and the potential of other seasons to come. Each episode was two to three minutes long.
At the time, Simpson said the series was intended to connect with the public and tell the story of police officers’ daily reality.
The first episode, Screaming Man, was released on April 20, and showed officers trying to track down a man screaming in the river valley at night. A new episode had been promised every week for the rest of the season, but that schedule appeared to quickly hit a snag with just two episodes posted on the police service’s YouTube channel in the six weeks since the launch. The second episode, Clothes Overboard, featured an apparent domestic dispute.
The Cops-style show was produced by the police service with officers in West Edmonton’s Squad 7 shadowed to real calls by cameras from the EPS digital media unit.
“Based on some of the feedback we have received, we have decided to refocus the vision of The Squad and cancel any further episodes,” read the written statement sent Friday. “We will take what we’ve learned and keep bringing stories about policing in Edmonton to the public through new and innovative ways.”
On the Edmonton Police Service YouTube page, the two posted episodes elicited markedly mixed feedback from viewers.
“I think the overly dramatic commentary detracts from the credibility,” one person wrote. “Otherwise I’m good with the concept. I think citizens need to see the situations that the police are faced with in their jobs.”
One commenter called it “Cheesy propaganda,” and another described it as simply “kind of boring.”
Journal columnist Paula Simons had written that the series “takes real policing and distorts and torques it into a dark and absurd Hollywood parody,” and Criminal Trial Lawyers’ Association president D’Arcy DePoe criticized the style of the series, saying it was “overly dramatic” and had “the flavour of some sort of horror movie.”
But Simpson said the feedback was “overall, quite positive,” and that young audiences responded well to the different method of communication.
He said police are now going to “look at how we could do this and do it better.
“Stay tuned, because this isn’t the end of it,” he said. “It’s just how we evolve and deal with the environment out there.”
A handful of police department employees had been working on the series on and off since last fall. Police say the additional budget for advertising and voice-over was $5,000.