Same Cases, Different Precinct
Top Coppers is a British parody sitcom created by Andy Kinnear and Céin McGillicuddy, the latter of whom also directed and wrote for it. It premiered on August 19th 2015 and was broadcasted on BBC Three, BBC Two and later on Netflix for a short time, from June 2021 and June 2022, and is currently available on ITVX. It had only one season with six episodes.It tells the story of two members of the Justice City Police Department, John Mahogany (Steen Raskopoulos) and Mitch Rust (John Kearns) fighting to uphold the law despite the quirks of their colleagues, criminals and most of all themselves. It is a parody first and foremost of classic cop-shows from the 70s and 80s, so there's lot of lampshading and tropes taken to the comical extreme.
The series features the following tropes
- Bad "Bad Acting": Randall Rogers is not a good actor. Mitch is no better - at least out-of-universe - and his yips tank his career for good.
- Big "NO!": Chief belts out one after recounting how he got his partner killed.
- Book Ends: The first episode has John crushing on a new girl, and the last episode is a girl crushing on him.
- British Brevity: Has only six episodes.
- Cliché Storm: In-Universe. Gerard Cliche is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, being a walking parody of French people.
- Hypocrite: Mitch gets jealous of John showing an interest in a pretty girl, yet when he meets one he's smitten with, he ignores his friend in favour of her, in spite of the fact he's dying of a lethal poison.
- Double-Meaning Title: The series is about two policemen - coppers - who have red hair - their tops are copper coloured.
- Mr. Exposition: Two of them in fact; a duo of police officers practically only exist to lampshade the current situation, shuffling by slowly in the process to say their piece.
- Retirony: Chief's former partner. His new boat was even called Hope I Don't Die.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Mitch's last act in the series is to proclaim his plan to run to Mexico when his tax evasion is discovered.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Chief hadn't fired his gun in over 20 years and it shows, missing his intended target ten-times over before actually getting him, leaving surrounding policemen writhing on the ground in agony.
- With Friends Like These...: Mitch is not a good friend to John, usually being possessive, hypocritical and self-centered.
- Yandere: The Hacker is willing to drop a bomb on Justice City unless John goes on a date with her.
