Help a fangirl out?

[rivkat]

I'm looking for pop culture examples (TV, movies) of professionals doing their jobs because they're professionals, even though they know -- or strongly believe -- that there's no point to it. An example would be the final episode of Angel. (That might be an example of "the point is that this is all there is," but I hope you get the idea -- you treat the patient because that's your job, not because you think it will help or because you think it makes you especially noble. You investigate the crime not because you're doing justice or because you have a personal stake but because that's what it means to be a cop. Greg House and L&OL's Jack McCoy are, therefore, counterexamples.)

Specific episodes/arcs, please! The point is to have some examples to show students, so the more specific, the better.

Comments

[audrey-cooper.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this fits your criteria exactly, but Eve Dallas in JD Robb's In Death series of novels is a person who does the job because it's the job. She's a cop who finds justice because it's justice and that's what she does, what she is. I'm listening to Memory In Death and there is a plotline on this exact thing. Sorry I can't give page numbers, cause I'm listening, but I think it's on disc 5. HTH!!!

[audrey-cooper.livejournal.com]

I think I'd better clarify - Dallas usually does justice because it's justice, but in this latest instance, she's doing the job because it's the job, and she's a professional, despite her lack of wanting justice for a particular victim.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Thank you!