Vic Mackey and the Strike Team are heels in just about every sense of the world... though we do root for them on a base level, we ultimately hope that they will be brought to the justice that they regularly disrespect... but it wouldn't surprise me if the show ends with Mackey still on the beat...

... on the other hand, you have a show that is quite explicit with its anger with the way things are run in this country... the futility with which law enforcement tries to fight the "war on drugs," the bureacracy and red tape and pissing contests that get in the way of that, along with the ways and codes of the streets, the fight for survival on a daily basis while running the most dubious of businesses...

In other words, one show is more about the machinations of the system, the other is more of a critique of the system itself and all that it entails...
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"But if you brought in the beat, that's all you did, was brought in the beat. You didn't produce this record.
This song says 'Produced by,' not 'Brought in the beat by...'"
-Snoop Dogg