Naperville's policewomen shine in new reality TV series

Angie Dickinson, step aside. There are some new policewomen coming to television.

And they're real and they work for the Naperville Police Department.

"Female Forces" debuts at 9 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 5, on Bio Channel, previously known as the Biography Channel, and it immediately establishes itself as one of the better, more tasteful and sensitive entries in the reality TV genre, not that that's necessarily saying much. Yet it's funny and playful too - and it might just make the now 19 women working for the Naperville police into TV stars, to boot.

Senior Patrol Sgt. Betsy Brantner-Smith commands most of the attention early on, and why shouldn't she? She fires off a burst with an automatic rifle in a shooting range, puts it down and brandishing her fingers says, "All rounds on target, and no broken nails!" Then she issues a playful marksmanship challenge to the male cops standing around as she goes out the door, adding, "I love messing with these guys."

The show's producers couldn't have cast the role any better. Brantner-Smith is known as "the Princess" and has a "fashion police" plaque above her desk. She presides over makeup parties in the station house and makeovers for her fellow female officers.

"Can you be feminine and still be a cop?" she says in next week's follow-up in the 13-episode series. "Absolutely. But you've got to work at it."

Brantner-Smith is actually the one who caused the show to be made in Naperville. She was on a police training cruise a few years ago when she met one of the consultants for the Fox series "Cops." She was comfortable in front of a TV camera from making training videos, and her name apparently got back to Hollywood. Eventually, producer Adam Reed called her and said, "We've got this show concept, but we need a woman who's camera ready."

Brantner-Smith said they had their woman. They got approval from Chief David Dial and the Naperville City Council, and the Bio Channel series began shooting for five months last November. There were then 18 women serving on the department; a rookie added this year makes it 19.

Naperville turned out to be the perfect setting in that it wasn't too calm, but also not too "gritty," said co-executive producer Leslie Greif. "What Naperville afforded us was the opportunity to address a more normal life and what people are like" - more normal than most reality TV, that is.

Brantner-Smith has seen the finished product and says she is "very happy with it."

"What I like about it is, it's not 'Bimbos With Badges,'" she said this week. "It's real women who are working cops in a great community and yet have all these issues that women have."

Officer Dawn Yorke works a 12-hour shift from 5:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., allowing for two nursing breaks a day for her infant. Sgt. Lisa Burghardt has to field a call from her son who wants her to make jambalaya for a Super Bowl party.

Officer Julie Lardino investigates a case of cyber stalking and gets the teenage victim to admit she might have met the guy in a bar. "You're 18," Lardino points out gently. "Obviously, I'm not supposed to know that. It's OK. Just don't do that again." (It later turns out the teen is being cyber bullied by some soon-to-be ex-friends.)

During a routine traffic stop, Lardino finds herself face to face with a guy who injured her resisting arrest and is out after serving several months in jail. When he's questioned and allowed to move on, he blows her kisses and says, "Lardino, I love you, darling."

She handles it calmly and professionally, with the help of her fellow officers. "Once you show fear," Lardino says, "you're lost." The man winds up jailed again after a court appearance later in the day.

And officer Tracy Nance takes a report on a hit-and-run on a parked car, then, while talking to the camera in the passenger seat, looks down the street they're crossing and spots the abandoned car that must have done the damage with its smashed right front headlight.

Later in that episode, Nance gets treated to a makeover by her colleagues. That's "Female Forces" at its best, looking at these women as individuals, but also as professionals doing a demanding job.

"What we wanted to do was make something responsible and entertaining, because after all you're making television," Greif said. "We wanted to provide these lady officers the opportunity to be fully blossomed as females, as authority figures, as officers of the law and as real people.

"It shows you don't have to be a perfect 10 or a total hard-(butt) to get respect," he added. "You can be bright, you can be intelligent, you can be feminine, but you can still be a professional."

"Believe me," Brantner-Smith says in the series, "whenever you see a female police officer who's in that warrior mode, there's nobody tougher."

That's why she wound up happy with the results. She also said the shooting brought the women on the force together. "We got to know each other better," she said. "Our relationships really blossomed."

Brantner-Smith believes that "Female Forces" is done in a way that benefits not just women cops, but all cops.

"I think it makes people think, 'When I see that squad car go by, there's someone behind that badge.'"