Cable TV’s ‘Real Vice’ Tracks Orlando Street Cops

By Hal Boedeker, The Orlando Sentinel, Fla.

Aug. 6–Orlando crime will receive a national showcase in the premiere of Real Vice Cops Uncut at 10 tonight on Spike TV.

The six-episode series follows vice cops as they work in Memphis and Orlando. Officers from the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation are shown busting drug sales and making prostitution arrests.

Real Vice Cops Uncut is a shorter, faster-paced version of a series that aired in the United Kingdom.

Executive producer Jim Romanovich stressed that the series treats police officers with respect.

“These are true, genuine folks,” he said.

“That comes across. They’re not Hollywood people; they’re not showboating. They’re not Crockett and Tubbs.”

Still, the series echoes Miami Vice with content about drugs and prostitution, Romanovich said.

“We wanted to have a balance of that,” he said. “Spike’s audience is male. They like hard-hitting action and fast-paced television.”

MBI Director Bill Lutz said he trusted that producers would show the human side of being a vice agent.

“We hope they understand the officers are out there trying to make this a better community,” he said.

“We don’t want to be another Las Vegas. We want that family-oriented image we have in Orlando.”

Hal Boedeker can be reached at hboedeker@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5756.

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