Sumana

Dennis Leary's show Rescue Me incorporated a lot of dark humor and showed a lot of the corruption and cruelty and incompetence that could exist in the fire department. Leary starred but also created, wrote for, and produced the show and he's very sympathetic to fire fighters while also not flinching away from the problems they often bring to the job (addiction, lack of attention to family/other relationships, being in it for the adrenaline rush instead of to help people, etc.). It made for an interesting combination that, as you said, isn't something that's explored very often. We like to see firefighters and EMTs and such as heroic - but they're just as human as the rest of us, so seeing that humanity in all of it's darkness explored could be very uncomfortable, if still enjoyable, to watch at times.