Luck Episode 1.2 review

First a note about the sad lack of episode titles. This has been a downward trend for Milch shows. NYPD Blue and Brooklyn South episode titles usually involved a pun. Deadwood episode titles were descriptive and functional but not exciting. John From Cincinnati had “His Visit Day X” for each episode. Luck isn’t even trying apparently and the episodes are just named “Episode X.Y” where X is the season number and Y is the episode number. I like to think of this one as being called “Claim Costs” as it is titled in Alan Sepinwall’s review. I think it is a shame to forego titling your episodes, as an amateur recapper and reviewer episode titles help me remember which episode is which and can be very memorable e.g. Lost’s “Live Together Die Alone”, The Wire’s “Sentencing” or Boardwalk’s “The Age of Reason”.

Now on to the actual content of the episode; I enjoyed this one more instantly than the pilot and felt I had a reasonable grasp of what was going on the first time through. At the time of writing I have seen it twice. There are some questions left hanging from the pilot that get clear answers in this episode. We now know precisely why Ace went to prison and who he blames for it. I’m still not clear how his plan for revenge will take shape but I understand that it initially involves baiting Mike (his former partner) into buying the Santa Anita race course. We get more on the back story of Walter Smith and his involvement with the dear departed Delphi; he was the horse’s trainer when its owners had it killed in an insurance scam and blames himself for not stopping them. I am really enjoying Nolte in this role. His conversation with Ronnie about “Kentucky Quality” was slightly baffling but the emotion there was very clear.

I enjoyed the poker scenes – I felt slightly more on board with what was going on there as opposed to the racetrack where I have zero experience. Jerry’s gambling at the casino is obviously not very skilful but felt true to the behaviour of an addict. I worry about the sharks there seeing him flashing so much cash – Lonnie might not be the only bruised and battered member of the winner’s club for long. Lonnie’s storyline with the insurance agents was a little crazy but made me laugh so not a complete waste.

Escalante’s failed scam with running Mon Gateau in the claiming race was the murkiest part of this one for me. Some research on claiming races helped. There was a fair amount of exposition from Renzo’s perspective as a first time claimant but I didn’t grasp how common claiming races were before doing some outside reading. It was great to see W. Earl Brown as the cowboy horse owen Chris Mulligan in this storyline too.

Overall the show remains an immersive and enjoyable experience. I’m figuring things out as I go and that is immensely rewarding as a viewer. The race sequences are fantastically shot and edited and continue to be exciting. I love the band of characters the show has assembled and look forward to following them through the season.

Game of Thrones Season 1 rewatch: Episode 1 "Winter is Coming"

I’m rewatching Game of Thrones Season 1 in anticipation of the second season airing later this year. Season 2 was announced for a 1 April 2011 premiere last week  at the Television Critic’s Association press tour and HBO have started releasing some promotional images. Sky Atlantic followed this week announcing a 2 April 2011 start date for the UK. So Game of Thrones parties at mine are now on Mondays starting in April! 

Spoilers for the whole of season 1 and the book “A Game of Thrones” will follow so please don’t continue if you haven’t watched the whole first season. I will avoid spoilers from later in the book series though so if you are only watching the show have no fear that I will spoil events still to come in the adaptation.

I love the opening of the series. Keeping the dark and suspenseful prologue from the book was essential. The external threat of the Walkers overshadowing the power struggle is a fantasy trope but nevertheless an effective way of adding tension to all that follows. The frozen and dangerous lands North of the wall contrast well with the hearths of Winterfell and the sunshine of Pentos that we see throughout the episode. I think the trio of guest stars who play Will, Gared and Ser Waymar Royce did a good job of conveying the dynamic between the arrogant young lord and his more wary, seasoned brothers in the watch. Having set up the experience of the rangers the fear shown by the men later in the sequence is more effective. The grim tableau of corpses in the snow is a striking and disturbing image, great work by the props department here. Its sudden disappearance effectively conveys the supernatural without any need for further effects. The use of the childs body for a jumpy moment is nothing new but it sets up well another jump later when she returns as a wight. The prologue was neatly boiled down into seven minutes of suspense and action in this sequence. David Benioff and DB Weiss made a good first impression for their adaptation and successfully link this sequence to the rest of the episode by the capture and execution of Will (interesting that they switched Will for Gared but not bothersome and probably better given that the audience spends the most time with Will due to his solo scouting in their version). I thought the grim opening set the tone for what was to come later in the series very well.

The rest of the pilot has a harder job. Namely introducing the majority of the eighteen strong starring cast to the audience and making them distinguishable as characters. I would say the pilot is mixed in its successes here but does well enough to retain the interest of casual viewers. The running time restricts having a substantive scene for each character but the production compensates with attention to the film-makers show don’t tell adage. Starring characters suffering the most from “who were they” syndrome in this episode are Theon Greyjoy, Robb Stark and Sandor Clegane. Starring characters well served by the pilot include Ned, Jon, Bran, Tyrion and Dany.

While Theon is present for several scenes his relationship to the Stark family (as a ward not a blood relative) is not fully explained. Alfie Allen does fine work showing his contempt for Snow in the scene where the dire wolf pups are found but an expository line somewhere might have helped to let the casual viewer know that he is also not a Stark. The show has to come back and correct this with a new scene later; which was welcome but perhaps avoidable.

Robb can be reasonably assumed to be another Stark brother but I felt he was a little lost in the pilot between the good work done to establish Jon and Bran. The adaptation relies on him more than the books do later (he is one of the few non-point of view characters amongst) the Stark children so it seems odd that he was not established better here. I accept that doing so probably would have been at the expense of establishing Jon quite so well. The characters are of an age and relate to others in a similar way so it would have been natural to give some of Jon’s lines guiding Bran to Robb instead. Had they done this I would probably be complaining about it!  Brief moments like his taking Arya off to bed and clutching Bran’s cloak after the execution help to show his position as the eldest of the children and were appreciated.

The Hound is featured with a close-up as the procession arrives and his helm is well realised making him distinctive. His brief scene with Tyrion says little about the character. I wonder if securing Rory McCann to a multi-season contract required a starring role. The size of his role is that of a featured guest star over the season as a whole. I probably would have less to say if he wasn’t in the opening credits. McCann is good in the role; I just wonder if the brief exchange was too little to establish him properly now and too easily forgotten. I think that it might have been better to just show him in the pilot before firmly establishing him in the sequence at The Inn at the Crossroads in the later episode, staggering one more character introduction for later in the series. Holding back Littlefinger until the first longer sequence in King’s Landing worked well enough.

Having complained about starring characters who get short shrift I now want to herald some of the minor characters they managed to fit in. Some minor characters cast early and included well in the background of the pilot include Qotho (Dar Salim), Jory (Jamie Sives) and Hodor (Kristian Nairn). Maester Luwin (Donald Sumpter), Rodrick Cassel (Ron Donachie) and Illyrio (Roger Allam) were well established as supporting players with personalities of their own. Condensing the minor cast is important for the adaptation; the engagement of an average viewer is somewhat below that of an average reader and viewers will spend less time with a story so should have less characters to recall. Attention to detail in background casting, production design and props is of great importance to establish a sense of place and to give nods to the minor characters for the book readers. I don’t expect to see all the characters mentioned in the books but the series showing that it cares about the minor characters too endeared it to me from the start.

I think the series has a strong sense of its world and the locations. The opening titles are both beautiful and very effective at giving a sense of the places we see and the way they relate to one another. I always appreciate a map at the front of a fantasy book and this fulfils that purpose and more for the series. HBO in general clearly invests in title sequences for their shows and have done well for Game of Thrones. I think titles are an important part of viewing a series; they prepare you for what is to follow, help to transport you and create a ritual element in viewing. This one is aided by the clever design of the map to appear like a real mechanical representation of the landscape and the fantastic score by Ramin Djawadi. I find the music evocative and original and it helps to make the project feel of feature quality. As well as the excellent title sequence and transporting score the series makes excellent use of varied filming locations to distinguish between its locales. Using Northern Ireland for Winterfell and Malta for Pentos makes it very easy to tell when the action has switched between the two. I will temper my praise of the sense of place by noting that the series sometimes does a poor job of conveying the passage of time. This is something the pilot episode does better than some of the later episodes with the line about the rapid growth of Summer (the Dire Wolf) and multiple lines establishing that the king’s party has travelled for a month.

I think Tim Van Patten did a fine job of directing the re-shot pilot episode. I am intrigued to know if there was a perceived problem with the work done by Thomas McCarthy or if it was simply the major changes to the cast that prompted the re-shoots. Nevertheless it came out well in the end. I think there is some lovely imagery in the episode. I particularly like the blocking of the devil and angel shot of Ned with Luwin and Catelyn behind him as he considers the news that Arryn may have been murdered. It is interesting that Catelyn’s position about this decision is reversed from the book; she is against going to King’s Landing in the show and for it in the book. I have to say I didn’t have the best handle on her arc and motivations in my first read through – I hope the show brings me more clarity there. Back to the visuals; I also love the realisation of the dire wolf that was killed while bringing down the stag. I thought the production design on the animal corpses was excellent and suitably grizzly. This sequence encapsulated the fine symbolism of the book well. Some of the CGI on the walls of Winterfell is not up to feature standards, which is understandable on a TV budget. Some good use was made of physical locations in this sequence; I wonder if it would have been better to eschew CGI and rely on the locations more.

There are some fine performances and excellent character dynamics in this episode alone. I think Peter Dinklage is the standout of the cast and his awards recognition reassures me that I’m not alone. His Tyrion Lannister balances well wit, intelligence and empathy and I think his scene with Jon outside the banquet is my favourite exchange of the episode. Other well presented dynamics include the relationship between Ned and his family, particularly Catelyn (highlighted in the Godswood) and the two scenes of Cersei and Jaime (first in the Great Sept and later when they are caught by Bran).

Ending the pilot with Bran’s fall is a smart move for a first episode; a cliffhanger is a welcome hook to retain viewers for a second episode. I was a little perturbed when some people I watched with assumed Bran was dead but I don’t think you could have kept this a cliffhanger and not had a proportion of the audience jump to that conclusion.

All in all a fine start to a strong first season. The pilot skilfully handles introducing a sprawling fantasy by focusing on two locations and relying on good performances. The size of the cast is its greatest obstacle and is approached cleverly with deft touches rounding out the characters, nevertheless the series quickly establishes that you need to pay attention to follow it (which is not a bad thing). I am surprised how much I enjoyed re-watching.

January 2012 TV preview

Welcome to 2012. New year’s resolution – to write regularly. I’m going to focus on television but we might encompass some other things too. For starters how about a preview of some of the upcoming television I hope to watch in January.

According to my ever growing TV spreadsheet we have a fair amount to look forward to this month what with American mid-season premieres and British just plain old turnover. I’m already a little late with this one; it is the 12^th as I’m typing. Things I’m looking forward to watching that have actually already started include: Sherlock Season 2 (prerequisite being that I catch up with season 1), Eternal Law Season 1, Stella Season 1, The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret Season 2, Above Suspicion: Silent Scream (Season 4) and Cloudstreet Season 1.

Sherlock is the widely acclaimed modernisation of the well known detective novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle written by Steven Moffatt, Mark Gatiss and Stephen Thompson. Moffatt is well known as a previous Doctor Who show runner and his work there has him overseeing scripts by both of the other writers. Gatiss is an affable presence in his own right and recognisable as an actor but has proven his writing skill on Crooked House and The First Men in the Moon. I’m less familiar with Thompson but cursory research suggests he is no slouch having won awards for his playwriting. I’m sure I won’t be informing anyone here but nevertheless I should note that the cast is also enticing; Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Watson. I’m shamed by my failure to have seen the first season and pledge to catch up by the end of the month; perhaps somewhat contributing to my avoidance is that I couldn’t finish the Hound of the Baskervilles when I was a teenager. Even worse is that I have seen the first Robert Downey Jr. film adaptation! Anyway I hope to rectify this situation soon. For other latecomers the second season will conclude with the third episode this Sunday (15 January) and the second part is still up on the BBC iPlayer.

Stella is an hour long comedy drama written by and starring Ruth Jones, widely recognised from her work in the same capacities on Gavin & Stacey. The pilot has already aired but should be available on sky’s anytime service for the remainder of this week. I enjoyed the first episode, it was well observed if broad. More importantly for a slice of life show it was funny, something that Sky’s similar commissioning formula for The Cafe sometimes did not achieve. Jones is an engaging and endearing actress and I have no doubt she can carry a series on her own. Stella is frequently repeated and the first episode is on again tonight but will premiere new episodes every Friday on Sky 1, with episode 2 airing on 13 January.

Eternal Law has also already aired its pilot, but this one is sat on my DVR waiting to be watched. Its a legal drama from the team behind Life on Mars; Ashley Pharoah and Matthew Graham. It slipped under my radar somewhat but the past record of these writers is enough to make me want to check it out. The six episode first season debuted on 5 January and the second episode airs tonight on ITV.

The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret is another comedy show that I checked out on the basis that it featured some cast members from Arrested Development in this case David Cross (in the title role) and Will Arnett. It doesn’t manage to put that show’s lightning back in a bottle but it is highly successful nonetheless and surprisingly British. Margaret plays an American temp who has the position of UK chief of marketing for an energy drink thrust upon him. Farcical hilarity follows. The first season was thoroughly enjoyable and I’d highly recommend catching up and then getting on board for the new one. The show airs on IFC in the states and the second season began on January 6 2012. It should be on Channel 4 later this year.

ITV’s Above Suspicion is something I’m more reluctant to recommend. The previous three entries have been fairly average cop drama but I like Ciaran Hinds and am not averse to cop drama no matter its quality so I expect to keep watching the fourth sometime after I have it all taped. The three part miniseries began on Monday 9 January and the first part will be available on demand through ITV until 16 Janaury.

Like Eternal Law I have been unaware of Cloudstreet until it popped up on the TV schedules. This is an Australian drama that has been picked up by Sky Atlantic. Of course Sky Atlantic have fooled me into watching rubbish by showing it alongside the output of HBO before (I’m looking at you Blue Bloods) but they generally have a high bar. I liked the look of the advert and have read a positive review in the Radio Times so I will probably check this out. Cloudstreet started in the UK on Wednesday 11 January but has already aired its first season in Australia. 

The American broadcasters seem less keen to capture the eyes of their audience over Christmas so the majority of this first part of the list is all airing on British television. Later on in the month a number of promising programmes are due to start across the pond.

Tonight (12^th January) 30 Rock starts its sixth season on NBC. Comedy Central will presumably pick up the rights to these episodes later in the year. NBC is struggling manfully to produce anything worth watching on the drama side since losing aging warhorses like ER and Law and Order but remains a purveyor of some decent half hours of comedy including this, The Office and Parks and Rec. I tend to prioritise my dramas and am quite far behind on all three but will catch up eventually.

On 17^th January FX begins the third season of the excellent crime drama Justified. The show is based on Raylan Givens, a character created by one of my favourite authors Elmore Leonard, and Leonard has a new book about Raylan out this month too. Justified started off as a good show by capturing Leonard’s atmosphere, great dialogue and strong characterisation on both sides of the law. It became a great show with its second season by devoting energy to serialised plots that gave us unforgettable season long antagonists. I cannot wait to see if they can sustain that quality for a third season. I’m currently introducing my dad to the show and am relishing the re-watch.

On the same night (in the same time slot in America) TNT begins the fourth season of Southland. This cop drama is well worth watching but has a chequered history and is lucky to still be in production. It has moved from NBC to TNT and had its budget cut worse than British libraries in the process. The show had to drop several recurring and some main cast members to accommodate the cuts and while their absence bothers me I’m glad the show is still around and hope it can settle into a new rhythm in its second run of original episodes on TNT. The show has found a home on Channel 4 in the UK and they finished off the third season just before Christmas – no date scheduled for the fourth so far.

JJ Abram’s brings us another new TV show in the form of Alcatraz. Lost fans should find plenty to appeal to them with this one: it has an overarching mythology with prisoners from the rock’s past appearing in the present day; it has an episodic structure revolving around flashbacks; it features Jorge Garcia (who played Hurley on Lost) and it also has much of Abram’s reliable television crew aboard. I’ve soured on science fiction mystery driven shows but I suppose Abram’s own Fringe is one of the better ones of the post-Lost era and will therefore happily try this one out with my wife (who is an even bigger Lost fan than I am). Apparently the show has been picked up by Watch in the UK and is set to air in March; can’t say I’m familiar with the channel but I’m guessing it is a free-view serial rebranding victim.

Back to Britain briefly for the fourth season of Being Human which also starts on the 23 January, this one on BBC Three. I’m way behind with the show but plan to catch up eventually. Also beginning on the 23 January is the sixth season of Skins. I’m probably getting a bit old for this one but I’ll stick with it as long as it remains an enjoyable watch and have invested enough in this year group (they change the cast every two seasons) to make it worth watching the second half of their story.

Back to the US for the cable channels; HBO is properly beginning David Milch’s new series Luck on 29 January. I really liked the pilot preview they showed at the end of Boardwalk Empire season 2. I’m going to be writing about this one for wikia at luck.wikia.com and hope to be posting weekly episode reviews. Milch is of course famous for Deadwood, which remains in my top five series of all time (at number three). The show features Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte, Dennis Farina, Jill Hennessy, Jason Gedrick, Kevin Dunn and Kerry Condon among others. It is focused on the Santa Anita Park horse racing track and the characters cross the worlds of horse training, organised crime and compulsive gambling. This is being advertised on Sky Atlantic already but I don't think the premiere date has been scheduled.

Starz returns with a third entry for its breakout hit Spartacus, this time the season is subtitled Vengeance. I have to catch up with the prequel miniseries that aired early last year. I fully expect over the top gore, frequent nudity and surprisingly good writing from Stephen S. DeKnight (Angel) and Daniel Knauf (Carnivale). Since I started watching the series lead Andy Whitfield sadly passed away (from Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in September last year), I hope the series provides him with a fitting legacy. He was excellent in the role and equally strong with action and dialogue. This one begins on the 27 January and should be shown on Sky 1 later this year. Starz itself is worth keeping an eye on as they will continue to produce new series and now have ex-HBO bigiwig Chris Albrecht on staff. I’m also looking forward to seeing Da Vinci’s Demons and Magic City later this year on the network.

Is anyone else going to be watching any of these shows? Is there anything I’ve missed that you would recommend?

Boardwalk Empire season 2 episode 6 “The Age of Reason” review

This week’s episode of Boardwalk Empire, “The Age of Reason”, puts us viewers at about halfway through the season. It felt very much like a mid-point episode. The main conflict of the season is the political coup against Nucky and Jimmy solidified his existing alliances and made an important new one in this episode. I think that the deal Jimmy makes with Luciano and Lansky gives the season a lot of momentum going forward and it has me excited to see what will happen.

It was interesting contrast to see Jimmy endearing himself to a new mentor in Whitlock, a new partner in Horvitz and then forging his new alliance with other ascendant criminals from New York. Nucky meanwhile continues to drive away his allies and old enemies harass him. He is impolite with Daugherty throughout their phone conversations and his barely concealed anger at Daugherty’s half-hearted assistance is driving them apart even before Senator Edge surfaces to upset their plans. His conversation with Remus is another reminder that there are many of Nucky’s associates who dislike him. The episode marks out its thematic territory early on with the opening on Van Alden reading the bible and the second season beginning with young Teddy transfixed by the cross. Faith and confession are tying much of the content together. Teddy’s first communion and the priest’s lessons about Catholic beliefs and traditions are the surface level of this theme. A limited confession is volunteered by Margaret, putting her attraction to Sleater into words but not mentioning Nucky’s criminal enterprise and her part in it. Van Alden wrestles with confessions in his personal and professional lives and ultimately offers a partial one to his wife and none to Supervisor Elliot. Horvitz tortures a confession out of Kaufman before Jimmy kills him. Catholic imagery is present in the scenes in Van Alden and Lucy’s apartment; Lucy cradling her new baby is posed like a Madonna portrait. In a way Nucky’s plan to get his charges transferred to federal court is an empty confession – admitting some more wrong doing to escape any consequences – and its chances of success are diminished in this episode.

There were a few scripting and directorial sleight of hand moments that kept me off guard in the episode. Van Alden weights in the hospital shortly after Lucy’s water breaks. When a nurse carries a newborn down the corridor I wondered if it was the baby but he is still unaware and waiting to see Clarkson. Clarkson’s delirious mutterings made me wonder if Van Alden’s would be too late when he did decide to talk to Elliot about his corruption but they turned out to be nothing to do with Van Alden.

I thought there were some great cuts in this episode. For example we go from Lucy’s water breaking to Eddie popping to cork on champagne. Nucky shuts his extra gift in the Bible history and we open the next scene with Whitlock reading the quotation.

I’m really enjoying seeing William Forsythe playing Manny Horvitz. He is familiar to me from other organised crime greats like Once Upon A Time in America and Gotti. He is injecting a lot of humour into the role and still managing to back it up with the necessary menace. Getting him was another fantastic bit of casting for the show. Consistency in getting guest actors back remains excellent and this week sees the return of Geoff Pierson as Edge. He’s carving a niche as a venal politician on cable between Boardwalk and his ongoing role as the police commander on Dexter. Co-star Julian Rozzell also returns as Harlan.

Some of the pacing issues continue. The show has an expansive ensemble and it is difficult to give them all something meaningful to do each week. Last week it felt odd that we didn’t see Van Alden dealing with the fallout from the explosion but we get plenty of that here. It was also strange that Horvitz did not appear even if he did get a throw away mention but that was also expanded on in this episode. This week it felt odd that we didn’t see Eli after his murdering O’Neill last week; or indeed that O’Neill’s death wasn’t mentioned by any other characters. If this story were being told in a written format such things would be a page turner element – looking forward to the next chapter with the character. On television it does keep my attention but makes the pacing feel askance. This is a minor issue and one that will probably be far less noticeable if I was watching the season on DVD where the gaps between episodes seem to matter far less.

The starring cast are well served by the shifting focus. Michael Pitt and Steve Buscemi are continually excellent in the two main roles. Kelly McDonald does great work with more screen time in this episode. She has good chemistry with Charlie Cox and their interplay is great to watch. She is brilliant at showing Margaret's intelligence and I enjoyed her carefully worded confession a lot. Michael Shannon has a lot to play in this episode; Van Alden continues to scare me whenever he is on screen, simmering with suppressed rage. Playing a hypocritical, devoutly religious, deeply confused character is something lesser actors would surely struggle with. Paz De La Huerta is also asked to do more than ever before in this episode. The childbirth scene was a little bit old hat but I thought she conveyed Lucy's conviction to deliver the baby herself very well in the scene where she brushes her hair in front of the mirror.

Along with his undoubted input to the on theme imagery, clever misdirections and subtle scene transitions in the episode I want to praise returning director Jeremy Podeswa a little more. He did a great job with the night shootout and standoff. The image of the two sides standing off in the road lit by the headlights is one of my favourites from the season. Two other favourite shots from the episode; the smoke drifting to the ceiling after the picture is taken at the end and the opening camera move of Nucky's big meeting where our viewpoint starts through the window over the door to the sitting room and then drifts down into the room giving us a good view of the multitude of major players Nucky has assembled. I am pleased to see Podeswa will be helming a third episode for the show later this season. Overall, another fantastic episode, I remain enthralled and excited to see what is next.

Prime Suspect US - early episodes round-up

I've been watching the US remake of Prime Suspect today and had a few thoughts on it. I should say that I am a relative latecomer to the original Prime Suspect having watched most of it on the Virgin On Demand service in January this year. I suppose that puts me in the position of having seen it fairly recently which might detract from viewing the remake. I did enjoy the UK Helen Mirren original but already find this remake to be a fairly different animal.

I think the producers of the US version have, quite appropriately, used the central idea of a talented but mildly abrasive female detective trying to progress her career in a male dominated environment and transplanted it into an American procedural. This process has . The television event model of producing 2-4 hours of material to air over 2-4 days that so many British series rely on allows for individual cases to receive longer running time. The American series appears to be following the solve it in 45 minutes model that American networks are enamoured with. I believe this means that the casework and the examination of the criminal characters will struggle to achieve the depth of the original. That said the American model produces more television in a shorter space of time so the characters that form the backbone of the show - the cops and those from Timoney's personal life - do have plenty of time for development.

I was disappointed to learn that (like CSI New York) this is another New York set crime series that has chosen to film entirely on the West Coast of America. Not only does this dampen the authenticity but it means the show will not have access to the fantastic pool of East Coast based character actors that can enliven a crime drama and lift it above the cluttered field of competition.

I do have a little cache of faith in executive producer Peter Berg who did such a fantastic job of the Friday Night Lights (FNL) series - an example of a successful television series adapted from existing material. I've been pleased to recognise a few names in the credits from the team Berg assembled for FNL including  writer Liz Heldens and producer Nan Bernstein Freed.

The series has a good ensemble cast of believable New Yorkers. Bello is doing fine work as Timoney and her interrogation skills, intuition and intelligence are clear to see and contrast well with her fraut relationships with her colleagues. The extreme sexism of the rest of her squad seemed over the top in the pilot episode. Times have changed since the original series but this element was not updated and thus seemed outdated. The following two episodes (which is as far as I have got today) featured a greater range of responses from her colleagues that seemed more believable. Brian F. O'Byrne (who I recognise from his fine work on the excellent Brotherhood) has the most conflict with Timoney as the two are in competition for lead detective roles. He is believable as a sexist and as a successful homicide detective and I think he has a difficult role - not many cop shows feature such difficult working relationships between their investigators. Its a pleasure to see Kirk Acevedo (from Oz and Fringe) in another series regular role although I wonder if this one will be anything new as he as a veteran of mens men roles. He does have some comedic interplay with fellow star Tim Griffin - the two make believable squad mates reminiscent of the cops from David Simon's Homicide book. It is also good to see Peter Gerety as Timoney's father, he is a fine actor and I hope the producers make good use of him. I note that he is also playing the cop's dad role on Homeland this year - hope he doesn't get confused!

The investigations seemed believable and it was nice to see that the writers took time to give us insight into Timoney's thought processes and how it sometimes differs from her squadmates. It certainly beats the plot driven machinations of other recent crime series (I'm thinking of you, Blue Bloods).

I understand the series has garnered some critical praise (although I've only read Alan Sepinwall's mildly positive review) but has struggled in the ratings. I'm enjoying it enough so far that I want it to stay on the air for the 13 NBC have ordered. I think that is a possibility if it maintains it's current ratings given the lack of successes NBC has had in this season.