Lockup: County Jails

That subject line refers to them as were stupid enough to cancel Lockup & as well foment the cancerous spread of a far inferior program, Dateline, across the TV spectrum. MSNBC doesn't even air Lockup reruns in disfavor of THAT garbage, which already enjoys too much overexposure at the local & national levels. But while it wasn't quite as gritty as if an HBO or Showtime had aired it - and why didn't one of them take it over? - what with all the unhelpfully bleeped out Harsh Language, still it was a slap-in-the-face revelation about the lowest-rent bipeds among us, the oftentimes unjust sentences doled out for their horrific crimes & the woeful state of the American prison system itself. They didn't go far enough with their exposures, though - this program could've gone on for another 25 seasons to bring to light situations in undocumented locations e.g. Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Billings, Boise, Cheyenne, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Little Rock - & one of the worst of the worst, old Parchman down Mississippi way. Someplace in New York other than that bloated stinkhole City, like Buffalo or Rochester, would've yielded interesting sociocultural revelations; even Raleigh - which 23 years ago I dubbed the most boring place I'd ever lived in during my happily short 14-month stay there - has an interesting penological history, documented Only Once long ago, on an episode of the even more too-short The Big House. But NO. Instead the polluted airheads at NBC - which in addition to that waste-dump Dateline have turned Oxygen into a landfill of reruns of their profoundly uninteresting Crime Dramas - dredge up as many clones of DTLN as they can, vomit out short-lived primetime junk (as they all do) & cannot be bothered to even put out a comprehensive DVD collection of Lockup for its legions of fans. Fortunately I have around 80 episodes on good old VHS & DVR, which I will go through until I can quote 'em chapter & verse before I'd stoop so low as to subject myself to the idiot overeducated ugmos & their crappy narration scripts on Dateline, or the equally vapid primetime faked "crime" shows across all networks e.g. Law & Order and their death-beaten reruns. The one "Oh!" of unexpected delight out of this wreckage that I discovered only today is that the long-uncredited Lockup narrator, Jason Hildebrandt, has gone on to do other things including a documentary on, ironically, the IDiot Channel - which operations are a whole nuther kettle of stinking fish by itself. We who gnawed on Lockup as greedily as at an ancient Roman feast now sadly have only its bones to pick over, but there's plenty of other crime documentaries, if not jail-oriented, to get our fix by. "Some beats none!"

What is up with the loud, fake suspense music in the background?! Example: California Corcoran episode interviews with Ian Polge, Terry Maiden and other inmates. This cheap horror movie music is a recent addition because I've watched many episodes and never heard this. Had to turn it off - too annoying to listen to that. Lots of other options to watch that do not have that lame music bed. There are lots of other similar shows to watch that do not feel the need to add a lame soundtrack like that to try to make the show more interesting. Did they add a new producer or sound person who felt they needed to add their own touch? PLEASE stop with the stupid horror show music soundtrack!

I'm going through these episodes while I'm on the treadmill every day. I must say, you'd think it would get monotonous but it doesn't. It's essentially the same format but they still make each prison interesting.

It generally follows three or four convicts in a prison or a jail and for the most part, it's the same everywhere. Some prisons appear to be way tougher and the convicts complain how they are treated in every episode but the show is very fair and you see it from both sides - the prisoner and the guard.

I will say after watching a bunch of these, I do not pass judgment on anyone who went to prison now. They did their time (or are doing their time). I may not like their crime but they are suffering their punishment now.

I also makes you appreciate freedom so much. Anyone can make a mistake and end up in prison. You don't have to be a bad guy. You can just do something wrong in a split second and your life is turned upside down and there you are, sitting in a cell wishing you could go back in time and change things.

Well you're back in time now, be cool and enjoy the show. It's a good documentation of the US prison/jail system and needs to be told.

One of the timeless classics of American true crime television, particularly the early seasons when the show was more unscripted and the inmates more candid, before they realized that their interviews would be broadcast to a nationwide audience and inevitably come back to haunt them. I put Lockup alongside the original Cold Case Files, American Justice and The First 48 as the best long-running crime series of all time, so it's a real shame that NBC has seemingly tried to obliterate the show's archives from existence, only making a small selection of revised (i.e. Butchered) versions available on their streaming platform. I suspect that this is due to the raw and unfiltered nature of the early episodes not doing enough to portray the inmates as victims, which goes against the prevailing views promoted by msNBC and their corporate & political allies.

I love this show I have been watching it for years. You guys are awesome and very brave to go one on one with some of the tuffest inmates