Cop buddies

Ever wonder why TV shows always pair up two completely different characters? I think it's because if they didn't, the results would be like this...

Ebony & Black - Chiwetel Ejiofor and Idris Elba play two homicide detectives who solve crimes with straight-faced Afro-American badassery and deep, bass-tinged voices. Gina Torres plays their hardass police captain. At the end of each episode, they sit back in the captain's office, drink fine liquor, and state that they're too old for this shit.

Result: The cast list of the show is mistaken for a systematic attack on Spellcheck, and the show is canceled.

Chick Brit - When Claudia Black's sexy, sassy jewel thief meets Jaime Murray's sassy, sexy con woman, anything can happen. So long as it's sassy. And sexy. And has a British accent.

Result: Viewing numbers plummet after Lena Headey is added to the cast as a tough-as-nails gangster whose sarcasm and deadpan bluntness balance out the sexy sassiness. Later, it is found out that this is because the lesbian fanbase melted.

We Solved The Case, Bro! - Ben Browder is a snarky, irreverent cop who suddenly finds himself assigned to help snarky, irreverent FBI agent Nathan Fillion. Will they be able to stop making one-liners long enough to solve the case?

Result: The oneupsmanship of their ironic gay jokes finally goes too far in the second season, when they celebrate a particularly good one-liner by making out for five minutes. Ryan Murphy takes over as showrunner and reveals that Ben Browder is actually a transsexual asexual with a sexual attraction to plants. Nathan Fillion also fakes a pregnancy for half the season.

ETA: Kevlar - Elizabeth Mitchell and Anne Torv play damn good cops who try not to let their emotional attachments stop them from solving their cases in a stoic, professional manner.

Result: A thousand fan vids are made consisting entirely of the moment in the pilot when a shaken Torv holds back tears and Mitchell pats her on the back. Most are set to Tegan and Sara music.

Damaged Damagers - Joss Whedon yet again tries to make a series that Fox won't air on Fridays. Sarah Michelle Gellar, Summer Glau, Amy Acker, and Dichen Lachman are a team of badass but emotionally vulnerable waifs who must use kung-fu to complete deadly missions, then reflect back on their traumatic pasts while angsty music plays.

Result: Halfway during the first commercial break, half the internet declares that the show is the most perfect collection of image and sound ever attempted, while the other half believes Whedon is threatening to personally rape them. Meanwhile, everyone else is out drinking because it's fucking Friday.

ETA: You know what? For no reason, Erica Durance joins the cast of Kevlar as a spunky coroner.

Na na na na na na na na

So, the present plan over at the WB is that after The Dark Knight Rises, Batman will be rebooted in a Justice League movie incorporating the new Superman and Green Lantern movie continuities. Good news for everyone who dislikes origin stories (which is especially unnecessary in Batman's case, since the entire Nolan trilogy has been one long secret origin). Since Nolan has been adamant that his Batman exists in a world without superheroes, this is a pretty good compromise (although I do wonder if they'll try the dumptruck of money approach with Bale, since Nolan is producing the JLA movie. If not, you must admit it'd be nice to have a Batman who doesn't sound like his lung cancer is causing constipation). Apparently, JLA will also introduce the Flash and Wonder Woman, who will then be spun off into their own films.

1. That Wonder Woman movie is never going to happen.

2. The problem with this (at least for the Flash) is that while origin stories aren't necessarily better than straight-up superhero stories, they do make for an easier throughline. Having an entertaining story about why someone becomes a superhero is easier than making one about them continuing to be a superhero--that's why sequels tend to suck, because any issues the heroes have tend to be resolved at the end of their first movies. So the Flash movie is getting hobbled right out the gate. But then, if it's Barry Allen, I don't care.

It's just, Wally West has to be one of the most cinematic characters ever. Beloved character, interesting personality, visually cool power, awesome costume... he even has the inbuilt story arc of starting out as a dick and then turning into a cool, entertaining dick, so you've got the Iron Man thing going for you. Get Bradley Cooper, write a script about him taking over as the Flash from Barry Allen and all that inner conflict, hire some cool visual director, and go to town.

ETA: They fixed Wonder Woman's costume. You know, if they really wanted it to look good, they'd put Bridget Regan in it.

Brit Chick: The Pitch

In a less enlightened time, the British Empire plundered the cultural treasures of the world. Although many of these artifacts have been returned, most of them are in the hands of unscrupulous private collectors, out of reach of official scrutiny. If these treasures were returned to their rightful owners, the diplomatic repercussions could be enormous... but the British government must have plausible deniability.

What to do, what to do...



The charmer: Jaime Murray as Sydney Croft

Sydney was always the black sheep of her aristocratic family. Maybe it was her mother's death at an early age, or her father's subsequent absence. But although she breezed through both her courses and her tutors, her true passion seemed to be trouble. Her father's lawyers were always, by the skin of her teeth, getting Sydney out of the legal repercussions of her appetite for soft drugs, hard boys, and fast cars. Then her family lost everything in the recession. Her father's former friends turned their backs on him, and Sydney's father committed suicide before the estranged pair could ever reconcile.

Sydney entered the criminal underworld to get revenge on her family's fairweather friends, using the contacts she'd made during her walks on the wild side (and her own natural charisma) to swindle them for all they were worth. But Sydney soon discovered a passion for the con, and now preys on anyone who can afford to support her lifestyle. She doesn't much like that her new arrangement forces her so share a council flat with a vegan princess and a Jane Bond landlord, so if she sees an opportunity to enrich herself during a job, she'll take it, no questions asked.

But underneath her devil-may-care exterior is a little girl that still misses her parents, and maybe wants something more from life than the next score.



The swiper: Claudia Black as Dina Phelps

As a teenager, the move from Dina's native New Zealand to England drove Dina to act out. She was caught spray-painting Clash lyrics at her school four times, until finally she was sent to juvie. There, she met John Simmons, sixteen-year-old son of famed cat burglar Mason Simmons. The two struck up a friendship, and when they got out, Dina learned everything Mason had to teach them, proving herself a natural prodigy. Now, she works as a cat burglar with a strict code of honor -- living a green lifestyle so she can give more of her haul to charity and only targeting those who have offended her on a political level. She holds Sydney in disdain for "only being able to work on her back," while Sydney sees her as a whole bundle of no-fun. But under the heel of DI Lane, the two form an unlikely alliance that grows into a bond of sisterhood.



The bruiser: Lena Headey as Agent Alex Lane

To Alex Lane, police work was just a job until her husband was killed in a home invasion gone wrong. Taken off the case due to her emotional attachment, Alex watched the months go by with no arrests. When she returned to active duty, she tore into her work, kicking off a meteoric rise to the very top of the London police department, and finally into the ranks of MI-6. There, she took an interest in Sydney and Dina, two cases she was never able to close during her time as a DI. A lucky break resulted in the girls being captured when they tried to rob the same mark at the same time, but Alex knows there's no way a prison could hold them, and she has no desire to cost the taxpayers money punishing two essentially harmless cons. Instead, she made them a deal. Work release into a black-book operation. So long as the Crown got back a certain amount of items a month, they'd ask no questions. Alex would stay on to make sure they only misbehaved away from the British government. And when they get into trouble, Alex never forgets that a license to kill includes pump-action shotguns and car bumpers.

A stolid, irresistible force, Alex cuts the girls little slack at first, but soon finds herself letting friends into her world for the first time since her husband died. But she won't let that get in the way of her mission. All the evidence points to her husband being killed because of his work as an art appraiser, and she'll sacrifice anything to get to the man responsible...

Series: Each week, Alex briefs "her girls" on a new scumbag who has his hands on a piece of stolen artwork and won't give it back. Dina and Sydney spar over sharing a flat (they're the original Odd Couple!) before getting down to business and re-stealing it. Although at first they don't get along, they soon see there's more to each other than meets the eye, and by the season finale they're thick as thieves (say, that might make a better title).

Sydney would be a canon bisexual, because you'd never be able to convince anyone that Jaime Murray is playing a Kinsey Scale zero. Dina would have an ongoing will-they-or-won't-they? with John, which counts as Dating Catwoman since he's an unreformed thief. Somehow, this only makes the lesbian subtext worse.

(Dina: It would never work out between me and him.

Audience: Because you're a huge gaymo?)

Alex, naturally, is Batman, which doesn't do anything to convince anyone that she isn't the fandom bicycle. Piper Perabo eventually guest-stars as her sister, just to torture people. Then Sydney hits on her and it's alllll better.