Southland

[Dana King]

The Beloved Spouse and I were discussing when we'd find time to watch
the episodes of Justified and South Park we have on the DVR when
we remembered Southland dropped
off our radar completely during and after the Olympics. We watched the
first four episodes, then never came back. Neither of us feels any
burning desire to catch up.

We both think the show was too inconsistent. The pilot was great, as
close to The Wire as network TV
is likely to get. After that, the sequence of episodes became too
iambic for our tastes. The emphasis shifted from show to show: one week
would mostly be spent with the street cops, the next almost exclusively
with detectives. The shows focused on the black-and-whites were great;
the detective shows were like watching Gray's
Anatomy with guns. Too much of a soap opera.

Is it just us?

[John McFetridge]

The "network finale" was fantastic - Regina King (the black detective) in her house with the witness and the gang coming was very much like a western in the best possible sense of that.

There were a lot of storylines, and I agree, the ones with the uniformed cops were the best - the way the story developed about turning in the alcoholic cop was very well done.

I haven't seen the new TNT episodes yet, but Lee Lofland reviewed a couple of his blog - what he says is well worth reading.

And Jack, for the last couple of years the, "It's Grey's Anatomy in..." was a very popular pitch. Two Canadian shows even got made that way. Copper was pitched as, "Grey's Anantomy with cops," and Defying Gravity was, "Grey's Anatomy in space." THey're both very high on the soap opera, maybe even light soap opera.

Defying Gravity has already aired and Copper should be on ABC this summer.

[Jack Getze]

A reasonable analysis, but for me, SOUTHLAND's black female detective is taking over, and is why I'm sticking with the show. I love her character, the inner strength she has to keep digging up to get by and solve crimes. I don't mind a little soap if I care about the characters.

If Gray's Anatomy had guns ... M.A.S.H. Great idea then, and now. Write a pitch for a medical team in Afghanistan.....