'Mall Cops:
Mall of America,' unarresting
TLC series tells it like it is, which is unfortunate
By Tom Conroy
May 24, 2010
A whole genre of reality TV sets out to prove that certain jobs — crab fishing, tattooing, auto repossessing, selling real estate — are more interesting than most people think.
TLC’s new series “Mall Cops: Mall of America” indeed proves that working security in a shopping mall is more interesting than most people think. But in this case, that’s a very low base line. The show still isn’t interesting enough to watch, providing neither satire nor suspense.
Premiering with two episodes at 10 p.m. on Wednesday, May 27, the series focuses on the security staff at the Mall of America, the giant retail complex in Bloomington, Minn. Despite what one may expect after the success of “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” the producers don’t mock the cops or their job. There’s no ironic editing or goofy soundtrack music as we watch the staffers tackle various cases.
A little teasing may have been called for. Although the mall cops wear uniforms and have titles ranging from officer to major, they still tend to call in the local police whenever a serious crime arises.
They’re clearly a little defensive. “We carry handcuffs and pepper spray,” says one. “We can arrest people, and we will arrest people.”
Any irony on the part of the producers is buried very deeply. In the show’s opener, the narrator says, “These are no ordinary cops. These are the mall cops.”
But even the most serious cases aren’t very exciting. A thief who is apparently part of a shoplifting ring is pursued and tackled, but we don’t learn whether his associates were caught or even whether he went to jail. A brawl in a food court ends uneventfully.
Much of the action will confirm the prejudices of those of us who think of shopping malls as depressing, soulless centers of consumerism and conformism. In the first two episodes, we keep seeing people who seem to be struggling and failing to make some sort of human connection.
The cops confront several shoppers wearing unusual clothes, a young man doing break-dancing moves with no music, a drunk Russian immigrant who complains that he can’t get American citizenship, a stalker who keeps leaving creepy gifts for a store employee and a mentally ill man who puts women’s makeup on his face.
Discussing why the last case needed to be addressed, an officer says, “It’s just not everyday behavior.”
When they agreed to allow the show to tape there, the mall’s proprietors probably didn’t expect that it would imply that the mall has a policy of enforcing conformity.
It’s nice that the producers don’t openly ridicule the mall cops, but some editorial stance would have been appreciated. Instead, we get reams of bland narration. When one cop has to work overtime on the busy day after Thanksgiving, the narrator says, “His Black Friday has turned into tired Saturday.”
At the end of a tired Wednesday, few viewers will be up for a half hour of blandness with a tinge of despair.
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