Backup

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Backup was a British police drama centering on the experiences of an Operational Support Unit, whose main task is to turn up to an incident after it's started and provide the extra manpower who are more traditionally portrayed as faceless extras or Red Shirts.

Tropes used in Backup include:
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": It is very hard to tell who a ranking officer is referring to on the team since they all call each other by nicknames.
  • Groin Attack: Done by a dog to a child molester. Share the Male Pain can even apply to a Complete Monster it seems.
  • Not So Different: A CID officer does this while trying to persuade a victim not to take the law into his own hands and shoot the peadophiles they have been building a case against for several episodes.

Victim: You don't understand how it is! They'll get away with it! You don't know what it's like!
Officer: Why don't I know? The only difference between you and me is I grew up in London... and I've had to wait thirty years longer to do anything about it.

  • Soft Glass: Averted, one officer enters a broken window, the second takes his time knocking the broken shards out of it.
  • Twofer Token Minority: Susan 'Bruce' Li.