Third Watch introduces both dirty cops and clean ones, dedicated firemen and arrogant daredevils, confident medical personnel and renegade individualists. It is their conflicts, friendships, love affairs and confrontations that draw viewers back each week. Things can get pretty grisly. Gunshot victims lie sprawled on the sidewalk. Mutilated bodies are dragged from wrecked cars.
Fire guts an apartment building, trapping families inside.
Still, it s the sexual undercurrents of Third Watch that pose the most danger for young viewers. Sexual innuendo and even some excessively crass slang cloud numerous conversations. Sexual preoccupations aside, the inherent value of life and honor is elevated time after time, rescue after rescue. Bravery, commitment, friendship and duty compete with foul language, drinking, promiscuity, homosexuality, violence and gore. And, unfortunately, viewers are left to draw their own conclusions.