In the US: Wednesdays, 10/9c, TNT
We are living in a post-The Wire, post-The Shield age. You can’t get much grittier than those two police shows did. Cops are one of the staples of US television, so it’s telling that most cop shows have stopped trying to be gritty since they know they can’t match them. Hence, we have The Mentalist, Numb3rs, The Unusuals et al, whose proximity to gritty is measurable in light years rather than centimetres.
So it’s a brave show that tries to do gritty right now. Then again, what choice does a programme have on TNT – the home of dark, gritty TV that couldn’t quite make it on FX or HBO?
Dark Blue stars that lovely Dylan McDermott – you know, from The Practice and Miracle on 34th Street – as a dark, gritty undercover cop who handles even darker, grittier undercover cops in an off-the-books, top-secret unit way. It’s not a bad attempt at gritty and it’s not without merit, but it’s very hard to believe that this is anywhere close to cinema verité for two reasons.
The first is that it’s a Jerry Bruckheimer production and pretty much follows the standard queues of any police drama, from long-suffering wives to cops who give up everything for the job. The second is that it stars that lovely Dylan McDermott.
Here’s a sneak preview. See if you can avoid laughing at him being dark and brooding.
