Shameless

Shameless is a British drama television series set in the fictional Chatsworth council estate, Stretford, Greater Manchester, England.
It is the story of a young group of siblings pretty much abandoned by their parents, surviving by their wits - and humor - on a rough Manchester council estate. Whilst they won't admit it, they need help and find it in Steve, a young middle class lad who falls for Fiona, the oldest sibling, and increasingly finds himself drawn to this unconventional and unique family. Anarchic family life seen through the eyes of an exceptionally bright fifteen year old, who struggles to come of age in the context of his belligerent father, closeted brother, psychotic sister and internet porn star neighbors.

Production
Shameless is produced by Company Pictures which is an independent UK production company which have produce things on BBC, ITV and Channel 4.


Distribution
Shameless has been distributed by Channel 4 since 13th January 2004.T
The show is shown every Tuesday at 10pm. It also aired on E4 for repeats (which is a channel associated with the Channel 4 company).

Reception
Average Viewing Figures
Series 1 = 2.57 million
Series 2 = 2.67 million
Series 3 = 3.01 million
Series 4 = 3.38 million
Series 5 = 2.65 million
Series 6 = 2.69 million

• In April 2005, the programme's first series won the Best Drama Series category at the British Academy TV Awards.
• Nominated for Best British Drama at the National TV Awards 2007.
• Won Best Continuing Drama Award at the Royal Television Awards Society North West Awards 2007.

Review: We've seen the comedic exploits of middle class families like The Connors on Roseanne and The Bundy's on Married with Children, But if the network sitcoms made great strides in depicting the more realistic, down-home families of America then Shameless runs a full-speed marathon in its focus on a struggling lower-to-middle class family. The Gallagher clan certainly isn't living in luxury, but they make no effort to apologize for the way they live, and aim to do whatever they can just to keep the status quo. Well, at least the six kids in the family struggle to keep the family afloat while the patriarch, a perpetually drunk deadbeat, does about everything he can to make that near impossible. That may sound like the depressing premise for an indie drama on a festival run, but in this case it's just the beginning of one of the most promising family dramas on television.

Comparing representations of ‘law’ in the two extracts from ‘The Wire’ and ‘A Touch of Frost.’

Representation refers to how the media represent reality on TV. The media industry try to represent everyday life on TV by making us feel as if it is real life. One good way of doing this is using stereotypes this is because the audience can instantly relate and understand what the character roles are and therefore no huge setting or introduction of character is required.  Common Stereotypes that cab be easy related to are; race, ethnicity, gender, class.

By looking at the two TV Drama’s ‘The Wire’ and ‘A Touch of Frost, it is evident that ‘law’ can be represented very differently in Crime/Detective Drama’s.

In TV Drama’s police offers and detectives are normally seen to be powerful figures that have a authoritative presence when seen. However in both touch of frost and the wire they are not seen as this.

In Touch of Frost the detective is almost as if in disguise, he is just an old man who wears nothing that scientifically indentifies his role. But it can be argued that the man is a detective and not a cop so this can be related to in everyday life because in order for the detectives to catch the murderers, robbers etc sometimes they are required to go undercover by going in disguise.

In The Wire the detective is just having a normal conversation with a friend of the person who died. At first it is even hard to realise that he is the detective. Here it shows law to be         and the police force are not shown to be dominant and aggressive like some people belive.

On the other hand, in Touch of frost, despite the detective not wearing uniform, the police officers clearly where ‘police uniform’ and are seen to be very aggressive towards the two supposedly bad guys when they jump out from the van and are cuffing them.

In Wire the crime scene is different to the crime scenes in England. The body is left on the open road and then forensics used to look for clues.

In touch of frost we see a girl to be one of the main police officers as the detective goes straight to her when he arrives at the scene. This helps show the audience Law and how things have changed from the past and now  girls can also now be head police officers.

In wire there are no girl officers seen however it is just the opening and hardly any characters are shown so it is not easy to say.

The intro of the wire seems to be rather destructive to the opening, showing several issues such as drugs, high murder rate,       so here we able to see what Law really is like in America.

In touch of forst at end a huge number of police officers raid a place here it shows us the powerful police that we are usually used to, taking control of serious situations.

In the Wire, the flashing police lights that are constantly shined on the dectivetive and the black man help reinforce the audience of the fact that they are near some sort of crime scene.

Crime/Detective TV Drama

crime dectetive drama on Prezi