COMMENTARY
Nothing ‘Unusual’ about cop drama
The only unusual thing about “The Unusuals,” ABC’s newest 10 p. m. Wednesday drama, is the title.
Despite an impressive cast that includes Harold Perrineau (“Lost”), Amber Tamblyn (“Joan of Arcadia”), Adam Goldberg and Terry Kinney (“Oz”), the series that takes over the “Life on Mars” time slot is the usual cops and robbers nonsense.
In the spirit of “Mars” let’s do a little time traveling back to the 1990s. “The Unusuals” is set in New York City, which means it invites inevitable comparisons to the groundbreaking Steven Bochco- David Milch series, “NYPD Blue.”
Series lead Jeremy Renner stars as Jason Walsh, a former major league baseball player turned cop whose murdered partner used some of the questionable tactics of Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz). Walsh also owns a diner.
Walsh is teamed with Casey Schraeger (Tamblyn), a rich, former Harvard student who has moved from the vice squad to homicide and would rather deal with perps than her parents.
The 2nd Precinct is filled with the usual suspects in police shows, all of whom have secrets. There’s a religious cop, a frightened cop who wears bullet- proof vests 24/7, a cop with health issues and a cop who talks about himself in the third person.
In the spirit of cop series, there is a less serious subplot involving a slain cat. The show moves fast, but the cliched dialogue often stops things dead in their tracks.
“He was a good guy,” notes the dead guy’s mistress.
“No, he was a cop,” replies Walsh. “You don’t kill a cop in New York.”
Then there is this classic cliche from Sgt. Brown (Kinney), the precinct leader: “Nothing in this world is what it seems.”
Except, perhaps good-looking, routine cop series like “The Unusuals.”
‘Rescue Me’ returns
Speaking of the unusuals, that’s a pretty good description of the characters in “Rescue Me.”
The FX series about firefighters in the post-9/11 world returns at 10 p. m. today with the first of 22 episodes dealing with the life of recovering alcoholic Tommy Gavin (co-creator Denis Leary) and his band of brothers in the 62 Truck firehouse.
I watched the first nine episodes of Season Five on my vacation, which illustrates how much I like this show despite some of its excesses. The season has the usual assortment of Rrated dialogue and sophomoric jokes about bodily functions and sexual practices, some of which are laugh out-loud funny; however, they become a little repetitive. You almost fear that the series dealing with the post-9/11 psyche of New York City firefighters might not have much more to say and that Gavin’s misadventures are no longer going to be as amusing as they once were.
But the fears are unwarranted. The lightness of the series is balanced by some serious lectures about the meaning of 9/11 that are inspired by the newest sexpot on the show, Karina Lombard. She plays a French journalist, Genevieve Lazard, working on a 9/11 project who has footage that shakes Tommy up and causes him to re-examine what happened to his late cousin Jimmy (James McCarrey) on that day. To be honest, the occasional lectures are rarely as moving as they should be and can be show stoppers in all the wrong ways.
Michael J. Fox also shows up sporadically over the nine episodes as Dwight, the new couch-sitting boyfriend of Tommy’s estranged wife, Janet (Andrea Roth). Dwight is a stretch for Fox, who usually plays likable characters. This time, he plays a strong, violent, pill-popping guy in a wheelchair who takes Tommy along for a dangerous ride in Episode Five and gives him an excruciatingly painful lesson in Episode Nine. The role has Emmy nomination written all over it, even if there are preposterous and uncomfortable elements to it.
As usual, Tommy’s love-hate relationship with Janet leads to problems. He also has to deal with his adult daughter Colleen’s (Natalie Distler) romantic life and the continued lunacy of his cousin’s widow, Sheila (Callie Thorne). His younger daughter Katy (Olivia Crocicchia) adds to Tommy’s problems in a very funny Episode Seven.
The early subplots also include a story line involving the plan of Dumb and Dumber firemen Mike Siletti (Michael Lombardi) and Sean Garrity (Steven Pasquale) to open a new bar with the crew’s resident womanizer and 9/11 conspiracy theorist, Franco Rivera (Daniel Sunjata). One firefighter comes down with a post-ground zero illness that leads to a health care dilemma. And then there is dryly comic Lt. Kenny (Lou) Shea’s (John Scurti) latest attempt to become a writer and a lover—not in the order.
The first four episodes have to tidy up some elements of Season Four and play like the early chapters of a novel. Things gradually improve and really heat up by Episode Eight, when Tommy’s battles with his demons, survivor’s guilt and the bottle hit emotional highs and lows, and set things up for the much longer 22-episode road than usual.
A very cleverly written, amusing seriocomic series dealing with some unusual stories and characters, “Rescue Me” makes “The Unusuals” seem like child’s play.
“The Unusuals”:★★ stars out of 4; “Rescue Me”: ★★★ 1/2
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