The Unusuals, "One-Man Band": Murder, incorporated

Quick spoilers for last night's special Tuesday installment of "The Unusuals" coming up just as soon as I drink some milk...

So the tryout after "Dancing with the Stars" didn't go so well, and with tonight's episode airing after a "Lost" clip show, I can only assume the numbers will trend down further. Like "Cupid," this one seems to be living on borrowed time.

And I think I'm okay with that. There are definitely elements of "The Unusuals" that I like -- the wunza partnership between Adam Goldberg and Harold Perrineau, the nuts-and-bolts of policework stories like Casey's favor-swapping mission -- but it has yet to add up into something I'm going to be pained to lose.

I thought the mix of tones was better in this one than the second episode. The wackiness didn't feel forced for the most part. And outside of being completely bored by the story of the cop with the shady past, I like most of the characters. But, again, it hasn't yet developed that extra "it" factor. So I imagine I'll stick it out for however long ABC keeps it on -- hoping that it doesn't get the "Kings" treatment -- but barring some major leap forward in quality, I'll be cool when it's inevitably not on the fall schedule.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

The Unusuals, "Boorland Day": Spree for all

Quick thoughts on episode two of "The Unusuals" coming up just as soon as I push an old lady off a roof for you...

While I'm often wary of TV dramas that proudly wear their quirks on their sleeves, I enjoyed "The Unusuals" pilot because I felt there was a strong balance between the wacky and the serious, particularly in Jeremy Renner's delivery of the speech about passing the badge number from cop to cop until it kills one of them. (I found it much more interesting than the comparable speech in the "Southland" pilot.)

Episode two, unfortunately, felt much higher on the comedy(*) than the moments I could wrap my hands around. I still think Renner, whom I vaguely remember from "SWAT" and little else, is an actor I look forward to watching (he could be Nathan Fillion's slightly disturbed younger brother), and Adam Goldberg and Amber Tamblyn on-hand still have some goodwill on reserve with me, but I fear that the show is going to head into unwatchable David E. Kelley territory sooner rather than later.

(*) And it doesn't help that "The Unusuals" is the latest ABC show to fall victim to that network's plague of Please Start Laughing Now music. It's getting to the point where, when I hear the tinkly piano, I immediately set my jaw and prepare to not laugh in defiance of the network's belief that I'm too stupid to recognize comedy without some secondary audio cue. The scene where Casey's trust fund manager showed up was particularly egregious on this score.

Another problem is that the ongoing mystery element of the show hasn't really grabbed me yet. I don't care that the Christian cop used to be a bad guy, or that his friend was responsible for getting Walsh's partner killed, or even the possibility that Walsh himself might be dirty. That part of the show feels obligatory in a way, as if either the creator or ABC felt a slice-of-life series about weird NYPD detectives wouldn't be compelling enough without some kind of larger story arc. Not every show needs it. "The Unusuals" needs something, but this isn't quite it.

I'm in it for a few more episodes, but my enthusiasm waned quite a bit after watching this one.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

'The Unusuals' & 'Southland' review - Sepinwall on TV

In today's column, I review the two new cop dramas on the block: ABC's "The Unusuals" and NBC's "Southland":

There are plenty of dramas on television about cops, but precious few about being a cop.

The "CSI"s and "Law & Order"s and the rest are driven largely by plot. It's been a while since we've had a drama specifically about the culture behind the badge -- so, in typical TV fashion, we get two at once: ABC's "The Unusuals" and NBC's "Southland."

You can read my full review of "The Unusuals" and "Southland" here. Both shows have certain things that are interesting about them, but if I had to pick one to recommend, it'd be "The Unusuals," for reasons I go into in the column.

But because of the Passover holiday(*), I won't have time to do a separate "Unusuals" pilot post for tonight, so feel free to discuss it here. I likely won't have any more time to do a separate "Southland" post, either, but since it's airing tomorrow night, I'll at least get some kind of open discussion post ready to go for when it's over.

(*) While we're on the subject of the Night That Is Different From All Other Nights -- which, btw, gave us the ever-popular Dayeenu rule -- chances are I won't be getting around to "Lost" and/or "Life" until sometime tomorrow morning at the earliest, and my Thursday viewing may be even more disrupted. Sorry. Click here to read the full post