I’ve been in need of a new cop show for a while, but I’ll admit that I mainly watched it because:
A) FOX totally saturated the market with ads. Advertising works I guess.
B) It’s got the “I’ve been there” factor. I have stood right where the dead couple was found.
I thought it was okay. Not nearly as gritty as I thought it would be. More Law and Order than the Shield. I hope the internal monologue/narration was only for the pilot, because I really hated it. Felt like the writers couldn’t figure out how to put in everyone’s backstory. And I’m sure they were going for dramatic, but I thought it was pretty hokey when
I’ll agree the acting the good (outside the monologues, which felt like they were reading a book.) I especially enjoyed the interaction between the lead and his new partner. I would’ve been way too easy for the writers to make them TOO different, and I’m happy they didn’t go in that direction.
I really liked it (almost clicked Loved It). It’s got that punchy zip The Shield had, and as that’s probably my favorite TV show ever, that’s a very good thing. Nice to see Delroy Lindo again; dunno where’s he been, but he’s excellent, and I think he’ll make a killer bad guy. The main cop is nicely badass. I’m not sure about the Superintendent, but other than that I thought it was quite excellent.
ETA: Oh yeah, the monologues were terrible. Pilot jitters, I hope.
I thought this was really great. I liked all the 3 main characters and the actors, it was filmed in a nice way, interesting story. The only problem is that I’ve watched The Wire.
They kind of did it a huge disservice by mentioning The Sheild in the promos. I am a huge fan of the Sheild and it’s other related shows (Sons of Anarchy and Justified are also both done by Sheild alumi) and I found this show to be kind of hokey and just…phony. It seems like a cop show that would have been made prior to things like The Sheild and The Wire, not after.
A lot of the voiceovers were done by an actual Chicago cop, which could explain the fact that it doesn’t sound like a professional narrator. They had a segment on the news here in Chicago about it last night after the show.
Sorry to be so late to the party, but I finally watched it tonight. Thought it was excellent. I loved the main cop. I liked his Chicago accent so much that I looked him up to see which part of Chicago he was from. Turns out he was born in the Australia neighborhood of Chicago! (a very far southern suburb)
The show it most reminded me of, if I had to pick one, is “Homicide: Life on the Street.” It has that gritty, personal vibe about the futility of trying to do the right thing in a world that is inherently imperfect. And as a Chicago native, I know that they chose the perfect setting to illustrate the concept.
I haven’t yet programmed a “series recording” for it, but I did set up the DVR to catch next week’s episode. Looking forward to more gritty goodness.
I really enjoyed it and as a Chicago resident, I felt like they got a lot of small details right. i was a big fsn of the main cop guy from the excellent Showtime series, “Brotherhood,” and I’m happy to see him in this role.
I liked it and will keep watching it. It isn’t great (yet) but very few shows achieve greatness in their pilot episodes (The Shield being one of the few exceptions).
Sorry, I was trying (ineptly) to be clever. He is from Australia, the island nation in the southern hemisphere. But I thought his Chicago accent was pretty good.
Better than the first, IMO, while retaining continuity. I believe there were only a couple of the expository narrations that people found annoying. I enjoyed finding out that the old cop who threatened the chief in the first ep really wasn’t corrupt, but was instead deeply flawed and damaged, making him just as crappy a cop as if he were corrupt.
The fact that Gibbons wasn’t involved in the driver’s shooting was a nice touch. Played up the complexity of reality, rather than making the show an uncomplicated “cops vs. city hall” drama with a straight line to an inevitable showdown at high noon.
I went in with high expectations because it has “the dude from Brotherhood” and “the hot chick from the L Word” but I didn’t make it through the pilot.
“Show, don’t tell.” It’s good advice and even allowing for the fact that pilot’s are inherently heavy on exposition - holy cats, they needed to dial it back a bit for my tastes.
I’m glad to read so many positive comments, sounds like I need to give it another shot.
My one qualm is that they’ve tried to so hard to make Wysocki quirkily broken. (cheating on his fiancée with his ex.)I worry that that level of kookiness is alienating to the audience.
I remember dark, quirky, & continuity-heavy shows like* EZ Streets* & Smith that died mid-first-season. I’m worried that this will fall the same way.
I want it to succeed, though, because I like Wysocki, even if he is a Sox fan. And I want this success for Jennifer Beals.