In the US: Wednesdays, 10pm ET/9pm CT, NBC. Starts October 2
Ironside is one of those fondly remembered but actually pretty rubbish cop shows from the 70s that occasionally appears on re-run channels. Starring Raymond Burr as San Francisco’s paraplegic chief of detectives Robert T Ironside, the show ran from 1967 to 1975 and it largely had two things going for it: Burr, who was even more famously Perry Mason; and its memorable title sequence, which in case you’ve forgotten went something like this:
True, its heart was in the right place: after all, its message was that a guy in a wheelchair can solve crimes and apprehend criminals just as well as someone who wasn’t. It even surrounded Ironside with a ‘diverse’ range of assistants. Trouble is that gave Ironside the eternal reputation of being the show in which a token black guy pushes the hero white guy around in a wheelchair all day, but who doesn’t get to do much himself.
Now NBC have decided to remake Ironside and they’ve decided it’s time to fix that particular issue. Because now Ironside, as well as being a New York cop, is black – he’s played by LA Law/In Treatment/Sex and the City favourite Blair Underwood, who’s also one of the producers.
Laudably, that means we have probably the first black, physically challenged lead character in TV history (I’m pretty sure War of the Worlds doesn’t count). Hooray! Progress!
Unfortunately, though, so happy are the writers and network to have ticked off that particular box on their CVs, they’ve neglected to actually make the show anything but cliched. Or maybe that’s deliberate. Here’s a trailer – I’ll explain afterwards:
