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seriousficI heard this called (detrimentally) The Last Boy Scout: The Series, and that's about right. If someone had made a TV show about Joe Hallenback and Jimmy Dix fighting crime and making money, but with the dude from Blade and the dude from True Blood instead of Bruce Willis and a Wayans brother (one of those is a marked improvement) (not Willis), it would be this show. And that's a good thing. It's something like its FX sister show, Justified, only it never really caught on--really attributable to the name and the surrealistic ad campaign. I wouldn't have thought it'd be that hard to advertise "private detectives who make dick jokes," but apparently the people who came up with "Timothy Olyphant threatening people with gunplay" were out to lunch that day.
Anyway, the first and final more or less wraps up, so you don't have to worry that there's going to be a big cliffhanger that never gets resolved. The story revolves around recovering alcoholic/recovering ex-husband Hank Dolworth (Donal Logue!) and reformed thief Brit Raymond (Michael Raymond-James! The killer from True Blood? The first season? When there was slightly more to the show than gratuitous nudity?) running a detective agency. When one of Hank's old friends is killed, Team Justice goes after the killers and finds a plot that goes all the way to the top, yadda yadda. You really have to watch it to get the full effect.
All in all, there's an impressive amount of plot stuffed into the shortened FX season. The mystery-of-the-week tends to reflect what the protagonists are going through in their lives, something like what Fringe has been on lately, but because Terriers is dealing with big themes like partnership, loyalty, and infidelity, it doesn't come off as gimmicky as "oh, we've just run into the only other person in two universes who has also forgotten their soulmate. Compare notes!"
By the way, in researching the show, I found a nice quote which sums up both why the FX network has such consistently quality shows and why this show in particular is so good.
Q: Now, with Katie (Britt's girflriend, played by Laura Allen), that character in most shows like this would be complaining all the time about what these guys are doing. But she, for the most part, goes with it. She accepts that he was a thief. She even sort of gets turned on by some of the things he does. How did you come up with the idea for her?
Griffin: I think there was bit of evolution there. All the notes that came from FX - I’m not just saying this - but especially from Landgraf, there was never one that made me really wince. This one might have been the most effective which was, "Make sure that Katie isn’t complaining or like these guys are no fun to be around. She’s drawn to that. There’s a reason why this girl is with this guy who’s not got the greatest prospects and that’s because he’s fun and she enjoys that."
Ryan: There was some concern after the pilot that it could go in that direction and so there was some conversations with John and the creative team over at FX about really looking for ways to move away from that and that was a great note on their part, and I think we embraced it.
Griffin: Also, the nice difference between film character and a TV character is in a film character that character can be a nag because you’re trying to get the story point across with all their failures. But you only have to live with that film character for an hour and a half or two hours. TV character, you want to be around a little longer and so it’s not just in service of that main character.
Ryan: And also it makes her character so much more attractive in the season as the series goes on and you wonder where Britt’s future is going to go with her. She becomes this perfect girlfriend that he risks losing. Whereas if she turns into some nag you sort of want to see him go away from her. I think the goal here is for the audience to hope that he has his act together enough not to blow it with her.
It's not just a nicely subversive feminist move, but it goes for empathy and character over cheap drama. Moreover,
I've seen a lot of "defective detective" shows where the hero has an ex-wife, blah blah man-pain-cakes. I won't name them for spoilers, but I'm sure you've seen at least one. And almost always, the hero ends up getting his girl back (usually despite her having remarried, and despite how much of a jerk he's being in trying to sabotage someone else's relationship because he wants his girl back). Here, Hank tries that and just manages to push his ex-wife further away. It's hard to get across how refreshing this is, coming on the heels of so many stories that did the exact opposite and expected you to root for the hero as he acted like a stalkery creep and got rewarded for it.
On the downside, the end reveal of the bad guys' part is a bit disappointing. Maybe it's just that they've built it up so much (a toxic waste dump? No, BIGGER) that learning it's just an illicit albeit elaborate way to make a lot of money is a bit of a comedown. Sure, it was never going to be a Cthulu summoning ceremony--but c'mon, how metal would that have been? The real problem is that the climax of the scheme is a threat to the heroes' hometown of Ocean Beach and they just haven't built up the location enough to convince that it's worth that much trouble to save. What would everyone do if the heroes failed? Uhh... moved somewhere else and kept going with their lives. Okay.
Hank trying to avenge all the people the conspiracy has hurt is still a good enough motivation, but I just don't think the reveal worked at raising the stakes as much as TPTB thought it would.
Anyway, good show, not much of a timesink, on Netflix Instant, check it out.
Anyway, the first and final more or less wraps up, so you don't have to worry that there's going to be a big cliffhanger that never gets resolved. The story revolves around recovering alcoholic/recovering ex-husband Hank Dolworth (Donal Logue!) and reformed thief Brit Raymond (Michael Raymond-James! The killer from True Blood? The first season? When there was slightly more to the show than gratuitous nudity?) running a detective agency. When one of Hank's old friends is killed, Team Justice goes after the killers and finds a plot that goes all the way to the top, yadda yadda. You really have to watch it to get the full effect.
All in all, there's an impressive amount of plot stuffed into the shortened FX season. The mystery-of-the-week tends to reflect what the protagonists are going through in their lives, something like what Fringe has been on lately, but because Terriers is dealing with big themes like partnership, loyalty, and infidelity, it doesn't come off as gimmicky as "oh, we've just run into the only other person in two universes who has also forgotten their soulmate. Compare notes!"
By the way, in researching the show, I found a nice quote which sums up both why the FX network has such consistently quality shows and why this show in particular is so good.
Q: Now, with Katie (Britt's girflriend, played by Laura Allen), that character in most shows like this would be complaining all the time about what these guys are doing. But she, for the most part, goes with it. She accepts that he was a thief. She even sort of gets turned on by some of the things he does. How did you come up with the idea for her?
Griffin: I think there was bit of evolution there. All the notes that came from FX - I’m not just saying this - but especially from Landgraf, there was never one that made me really wince. This one might have been the most effective which was, "Make sure that Katie isn’t complaining or like these guys are no fun to be around. She’s drawn to that. There’s a reason why this girl is with this guy who’s not got the greatest prospects and that’s because he’s fun and she enjoys that."
Ryan: There was some concern after the pilot that it could go in that direction and so there was some conversations with John and the creative team over at FX about really looking for ways to move away from that and that was a great note on their part, and I think we embraced it.
Griffin: Also, the nice difference between film character and a TV character is in a film character that character can be a nag because you’re trying to get the story point across with all their failures. But you only have to live with that film character for an hour and a half or two hours. TV character, you want to be around a little longer and so it’s not just in service of that main character.
Ryan: And also it makes her character so much more attractive in the season as the series goes on and you wonder where Britt’s future is going to go with her. She becomes this perfect girlfriend that he risks losing. Whereas if she turns into some nag you sort of want to see him go away from her. I think the goal here is for the audience to hope that he has his act together enough not to blow it with her.
It's not just a nicely subversive feminist move, but it goes for empathy and character over cheap drama. Moreover,
I've seen a lot of "defective detective" shows where the hero has an ex-wife, blah blah man-pain-cakes. I won't name them for spoilers, but I'm sure you've seen at least one. And almost always, the hero ends up getting his girl back (usually despite her having remarried, and despite how much of a jerk he's being in trying to sabotage someone else's relationship because he wants his girl back). Here, Hank tries that and just manages to push his ex-wife further away. It's hard to get across how refreshing this is, coming on the heels of so many stories that did the exact opposite and expected you to root for the hero as he acted like a stalkery creep and got rewarded for it.
On the downside, the end reveal of the bad guys' part is a bit disappointing. Maybe it's just that they've built it up so much (a toxic waste dump? No, BIGGER) that learning it's just an illicit albeit elaborate way to make a lot of money is a bit of a comedown. Sure, it was never going to be a Cthulu summoning ceremony--but c'mon, how metal would that have been? The real problem is that the climax of the scheme is a threat to the heroes' hometown of Ocean Beach and they just haven't built up the location enough to convince that it's worth that much trouble to save. What would everyone do if the heroes failed? Uhh... moved somewhere else and kept going with their lives. Okay.
Hank trying to avenge all the people the conspiracy has hurt is still a good enough motivation, but I just don't think the reveal worked at raising the stakes as much as TPTB thought it would.
Anyway, good show, not much of a timesink, on Netflix Instant, check it out.
