The merger wouldn’t quite work, I suspect, but if you combined the best parts of “Southland” (9 p.m. Thursday, WMAQ-Ch. 5 ***) and “The Unusuals” (9 p.m. Wednesday, WLS-Ch. 7 ** 1/2), you might end up with a pretty great cop show.
Both shows follow in the footsteps of “Hill Street Blues” and “NYPD Blue” in that they attempt to depict what it’s like to be an urban police officer. The randomness, the tragedies, the camaraderie, the sacrifices, the sardonic humor — they’re all part of the fabric of both ensemble dramas.
“Southland,” which comes from “ER” executive producers John Wells and Christopher Chulack, is the more serious and satisfying drama, though it could use a little more of the lightness of “The Unusuals.”
“The Unusuals,” on the other hand, tries a little too hard to be quirky. “Hill Street Blues” had its share of offbeat moments, but it strived to get the atmosphere of the station house and police work right. “The Unusuals” doesn’t have the balance between the comedy and the serious stuff right yet, but Terry Kinney lends a welcome acerbic note as the station’s seen-it-all leader, Sgt. Harvey Brown.
The best thing about “The Unusuals” is the partnership between Detectives Eric Delahoy (Adam Goldberg) and Leo Banks (Harold Perrineau). These two actors have great chemistry, and their interrogation of a suspected cat killer is weird and amusing, even if it recalls moments seen on many other cop shows in the past.
Amber Tamblyn is appealing as Detective Casey Schraeger, but she is stuck in a more conventional story line about cops who are hiding secrets. Other characters fail to make much of an impression on first viewing, aside from the arrogant, headstrong Eddie Alvaraz (Kai Lennox), who is a walking cop-show cliche but who also allows the writers to provide an occasionally amusing metacommentary on cop-show cliches.
Like Shraeger in “The Unusuals,” Ben Sherman, Ben McKenzie’s character on “Southland,” is hiding a secret about his past. And though it has a much darker look and tone, the NBC show also boasts its share of cop cliches.
“It’s like driving through the sewer in a glass-bottomed boat,” veteran John Cooper (Michael Cudlitz) says to Sherman, who is learning the ropes from the older cop.
“Southland” is reminiscent of “The Shield”; in this NBC drama, dogs are constantly barking, crimes make little sense and bystanders are too afraid to act as witnesses. Quietly holding the whole thing together is McKenzie (“The O.C.”), who gives Sherman an appealing vulnerability and an inward-looking intensity. Also excellent is Regina King as a dedicated detective.
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