This is a show about an awkward nerd policeman. It has the ingredients to be a great show, such as good acting, a well filmed setting, and unconstrained by 'made for tv' censors, etc... the problem is, it fails to take advantage of any of that.
If you are looking something graphic and gritty, this is not your show...Aside from an F-word every few episodes, or a naked dead body here or there, this show could be rated PG, and plays out like a slow family drama where the dad is addicted to work & happens to be a policeman. The focus on the crimes, investigations, criminals and police procedure is too minimal.
The first season has some good points in the first several episodes where they are exciting, mysterious and satisfying but they are never built on or developed, instead the show dies slowly from that point on...
The nerd himself is an oddball weakling who was abused as a kid but managed to have a family and career anyhow. He has this mental meditative method he uses with different 'rooms' in his head, but it is never explored or explained or given the development it should in the story, because he relies on it in every case. Early on in season 1 some younger cops were trying to learn from him and probing on his 'method' but then it never went anywhere..?
He is like a classic Sherlock Holmes type...he isn't going to punch anyone out or shoot them dead even if they're threatening his family - he's a thinker. Too often though, his crime solving "genius" isn't solving or connecting anything impressive, so instead of making him look like some Mastermind cop, it instead makes everyone else look painfully unqualified. So in any other police show he would be the quirky smart guy, but here trying to put him & his brain in the lead role doesn't work because they don't match him up against any worthwhile adversaries or dive into his process enough to make it anything worthwhile.
Even in places where some action scenes could have gone, or gone on longer, they too often cut to the bad guy in cuffs or in interrogation instead of giving an exciting scene. The writing is weak and resolutions are unsatisfying. They are usually crammed into the last few minutes, after the nerd hold his fingers to his head for awhile 'thinking'. . . Instead of being led up to gradually naturally or us being let into his head as he figures things out, this show just drops the solving of cases on viewers in a rushed weird way.
What's really bad about it is they have the time to better pace-reveal the crime stories & police process, but instead spend way way too much screen time on the jobs, tears, disease, and fears of the detectives daughter, wife, & daughter of another detective. Its like sitcom level stupidity at certain points, and takes time away from the criminal police investigation side of the stories which needed to be done better for this show to be taken seriously.
It is also frustrating when these 'should be side characters' are put into the middle of investigation plots continuously. This lack of believability or even possibility that the same small group could always find themselves threatened, kidnapped, targeted, or used by random killers and criminals throughout the show is another major flaw. It becomes forced & again makes police look like a joke when everyone on the case knows these are the people at risk & threatened but somehow they're again left unprotected and just sit at home alone or walk the streets alone...weak.
At the end of the day we have a lead detective who is all brains + no balls, a supporting cast of characters who come across as annoyingly needy or incompetent, more development of family drama than crime stories, very tame for a premium murder series, and there's more bad, but I've explained enough why it maxes out at 5 stars.
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