The usual problems with US tv material: Trite situations and dialogue, acting-by-numbers and formulaic plotting. This is all enlivened - but not entirely salvaged from the wreckage - by the performance of Damian LEWIS who makes the general psychological implausibility seem sort-of believable.
The hackneyed odd-coupling of two very different police officers works quite well as we all-too-slowly learn what makes them tick. However, the dialogue gives the impression US tv pays by the word since there is far more than necessary; while it insults the actors' ability to emote effectively and the audience's ability to stay awake during the quiet moments. The characterization and the plotting are in direct conflict and the ersatz Zen Buddhism is just another dramatic gimmick that does not allow the actors to breathe life into their roles.
The worst aspect of this is the old White-supremacist chestnut of the Caucasoid central hero and their ethnic-minority sidekick. The fact that she out-ranks him is neither here nor there, since her character is thinly-written as a sexual neurotic. Whites are still neurotically obsessed with the sexuality of non-Whites.
This drama behaves as if intelligence-led operations were simultaneously irrelevant and necessary; as if dependency on criminals to help solve crime were not a simple fact of a policeman's life. The greatest crime committed by these crime series is that of trying to get us to believe that police officers can solve crimes through sheer brainpower and have no need for informers - who can continue committing crimes with federal government immunity to protect them.
Muddled and unintelligent.
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