Post Rodney King, it took America a while to re-embrace police brutality. But the stubborn fact remains that everyone enjoys watching street vermin getting a beatdown from the cops. Which is good news for The Shield (Fri, 11pm, Five), FX's riotous police drama set in the fictional Los Angeles district of Farmington - where Compton folk go when they feel like slumming it.

"With all the softly-softly sensitivity you expect from a man who looks like he was chucked out of the Aryan Nation for looking too hard, Vic and his crew have in that time fine-tuned their brutality."

Has it really been five seasons that Vic Mackey has been policing Farmington? Apparently so. With all the softly-softly sensitivity you expect from a man who looks like he was chucked out of the Aryan Nation for looking too hard, Vic and his crew have in that time fine-tuned their brutality. They use street dealers as unofficial ATM machines - shaking them down, fitting them up and slapping them around with a glee that suggests a deep and abiding job satisfaction.

"Kavanaugh sits hunched over the audio output like the voyeuristic tub of guts he truly is."

But the fun times are over this season as Internal Affairs, in the shape of Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh (Forest Whitaker), have got strike team member Lem over a barrel, and wearing a frickin' wire. Friday's episode even sees Kavanaugh bugging the strike team clubhouse (is nothing sacred?). Kavanaugh sits hunched over the audio output like the voyeuristic tub of guts he truly is.

It's a bitch for Vic, constantly dodging the attentions of Internal Affairs snoops. And he isn't helped by the colossal stupidity of his crew, most notably Shane (Walton Goggins) a redneck corn-fed shitkicker who manages to act even dumber than he looks. Which, given that he looks like the cumulative product of 40 generations of parental incest, is no mean feat. While Mackey is keeping one step ahead of the game so far, Kavanaugh is remorseless in his pursuit. If he gets his way and Vic is shown the door simply for being violent, corrupt and amoral while getting good results, a career in Italian football surely awaits.

"If Vic is shown the door simply for being violent, corrupt and amoral while getting good results, a career in Italian football surely awaits."

Of course, in ye olde worlde of frontier America, violence and corruption were the system. The evolution of law and order from that chaos is the defining theme of David Milch's extraordinary Deadwood (Thu, 10pm, Sky One). Set in the shadow of the mother of all mother lodes in South Dakota's Black Hills, Deadwood is Shakespeare directed by Sergio Leone and scripted by Shane MacGowan. Against the odds, something resembling civilisation is emerging from the horseshit and grime in Deadwood.

"Bullock glowers, apparently powerless to stop his smackhead mistress from having her holding whipped from under her pretty nose'"

Neighbourhood crimelord Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) is the focus of the series. He's Genghis Khan meets Machiavelli - a ferocious intellect combined with a chilling ruthlessness. Controlling the dope, liquor and hookers has been good for Al but he's finding his grip on the camp loosened by the arrival of George Hearst, the pathologically acquisitive mining tycoon obsessed with cementing his monopoly by acquiring the Garrett gold claim.

And Hearst may well get his way as laudanum lush Widow Garrett (now Mrs Ellsworth) is back on the skag, and not getting the Olympic standard seeing-to she was getting last season from Sheriff Bullock. Bullock for his part glowers, mute and menacing, apparently powerless to stop his smackhead mistress from having her holding whipped from under her pretty nose.

"A fistfight of such prolonged, eye-popping brutality you'll quickly find yourself sticking on The Passion Of The Christ DVD for light relief."

Deadwood takes savagery to new levels, something well illustrated this week as Dan Dority strides down the thoroughfare to face down Hearst's man, the horrendous sea creature Captain Turner, in a fistfight of such prolonged, eye-popping brutality you'll quickly find yourself sticking on The Passion Of The Christ DVD for light relief.

Ali G once noted that violence is a good solution to a violent situation. Whether it's the Farmington crew duffing up some street punk or Al slicing a hoople-head's windpipe, if TV teaches us one lesson this summer it's that civilisation comes forth only when bad men get pummelled into putty. Tell that to the cranks who say television has lost its moral compass.

Reproduced by kind permission of The Guardian

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