A lifetime ago, as a young reporter covering the New York City Police Department, I used to ask most every officer I met which “realistic” television drama best captured the essence of police work. In the beginning, I expected the answer would be Hill Street Blues, or maybe Kojak—NYPD Blue and Law & Order had yet to be born. But, to a person, New York’s finest invariably cited Barney Miller, the antic half-hour ‘70s squad-room sitcom, as the show that most reflected the can’t-make-this-up truth of their trade.

This paradox came vividly to mind as I watched FX’s Impeachment, Ryan Murphy’s literal-to-a-fault recreation of the Bill Clinton–Monica Lewinsky saga. The series summons up all the gritty, granular detail of the world-shaking story that I helped cover in another long-ago lifetime for The New York Times. Pounds of prosthetic makeup, verbatim quotations from taped conversations, and skillful reproductions of remembered iconic images—that jaunty beret, that wagging finger—prompt P.T.S.D.-inducing flashbacks.