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This article proposes a study of an episode of the series Columbo entitled “Dagger of the Mind” (1972), which centers on Shakespeare’s Macbeth. We will examine the tension that this episode puts into place between an American series from the 20th century, Columbo, on one hand, and Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, on the other. The mirroring of the two works suggested from the first images, and taken up again throughout the investigation, allows for an exploration of how Columbo and Macbeth articulate together, what Macbeth does to Columbo and what Columbo does to Macbeth, notably in the British context that characterizes the episode and breaks with the ordinarily American setting of the show. After having examined several modes of interpenetration and articulation between the two worlds, we will analyze the process of demythologization and of petrification that seems to be at work in this episode, where the knife appears to find its grotesque substitute in an essentially English accessory: the umbrella. The revival that is at the heart of this episode will thus be analyzed in terms of overlapping on one hand, and differences on the other. To be and not to be all at the same time: in this tension resides the complexity of the reprise and the echo as they appear in this episode.

American series like The Experts and Bone have been met today with incontestable popular success. All while entertaining the views, these series place science and technology at the heart of their subjects: the action takes place in a scientific environment; the characters represent scientists; the story itself is carried by science and technology. If they do not attempt to be true or real, they work in the register of credibility. What representation of science and technology do these contemporary American series convey? How does the story related in each episode make use of science and technology to make a coherent and attractive fiction? Our goal is to show the mechanisms on which the links between science, technology, and the story are founded. To do this, we will follow two complementary lines of thought. The first aims to better understand the articulation between the police investigation at the heart of “Cop and doc shows” and scientific investigation. The second studies representations of science and technology that circulate and help construct the story. The comparative analysis of several episodes reveals the common and distinctive points between these two series and highlights different forms of interaction between science, technology, and the story. It also underlines the narratives potentialities of science and technology in this type of television production associated with entertainment.

Since the appearance of television series in the 1950s, notably in the United States, the police officer remains a central character in fictions: the privileged witness of transformations in society. We will study the representations of the police officer in several contemporary American TV fictions, by first bringing to light the emergence of a new, complex and troubled figure of the police officer, which appeared in the 1990s with officer Andy Sipowicz in NYPD Blue, and far from the pioneer American police dramas such as The Incorruptables and Dragnet, which put forward models of morality. Next, we will study, through this new figure, the doubtful view that the country takes of its own, increasingly violent society. Through the examples of several major contemporary series, The Shield, The Wire, and Dexter, from three distinct cable networks (FX, HBO, and Showtime), we will analyze several new figures of the police officer: the troubled incarnation of law and order.