Q.3 How far does Cuffs adapt police drama conventions to fit its family audience at 8 p.m. on BBC1?

Cuffs is a police drama aimed at a family audience.

 Firstly Cuffs adapts to fit the family audience by its use of violence and gory imagery. Naturally a police drama such as Cuffs would involve a lot of violent imagery as the police capture their criminals or the other way round where the criminals kill or abuse another person However, Cuffs presents this imagery in a more passive and rather inoffensive way. For example when a teenager is killed in a newsagents, rather than blood being splattered across the cold floor, they instead have the  criminals splatter a curry packet to represent blood on the floor. the imagery is non violent but still gives you an idea of just how brutal these criminals are. This is done to protect the eyes of the younger viewers watching the show. Cuffs still sticks to the conventions of the police genre with fast paced moments and gripping action (such as the chase scene later in the episode)to keep the viewers hooked.

On the other hand, Cuffs also features a few light hearted and rather inoffensive jokes fit for the family audience. Similarly to the last point, typically most shows of this genre would be incredibly serious as dealing with criminals in real life is a very serious matter and is not something to laugh about. In Cuffs however we see a few jokes that present policing as somewhat as a joke. For example one of the first scenes we see Ryan looking all stern and serious. He looks like he's about to catch a serious criminal. The camera soon shows us that he is heading to a naturist beach which is the joke. rather simple but inoffensive jokes like this garner it a family audience as it is something the whole family can laugh to.

In conclusion, Cuffs adapts to the conventions of a police drama with light hearted comedy and imagery that can be viewed by the whole family just like it intends to.