The Unusuals (2009)

Be on the lookout for a male wearing a hot dog costume, last seen running west on Halston Street. Suspect may or may not be wielding a samurai sword.

Casey Schraeger is young detective working in the Vice department of the NYPD when she is suddenly transferred to homicide to replace a cop who was just murdered. That is all on the surface, but she is also tasked by her new sergeant to secretly uncover any secrets and improprieties of not only the murdered cop, but also his former partner/her new partner, Jason Walsh as well as the other detectives in the department. Detective Banks is so paranoid that he will die that he sleeps in his bulletproof vest, has foam padding around the edge of his desk, and replaced all his furniture with inflate-able chairs. Detective Delahoy has recently found out he has a brain tumor, but hasn't told anyone and refused treatment out of fear of what the treatment might do to him which ironically has made him somewhat more fearless in contrast with his partner, Banks. There is also Detective Cole who is a hardcore Christian whose faith is unwavering and his partner Detective Beaumont who is a tough, no nonsense Hispanic woman.

They will all work to solve cases that are rather unusual with the gritty atmosphere mashing with comedic insanity. Like the murder of a naked man running down the street, or the disappearance of a nursing home patient despite him being declared dead. What seems like another police procedural is actually a black comedy that is focused less on the procedure and more on the characters who are all interesting and nuanced and only become more so as viewers get to know them and as Casey learns more about their secrets. The shows premise is a good one even if the whole secrets shtick is finished about halfway through the 10 episode run. The conclusion of that particular plotline would have made a decent finale other than the episode that became the finale because of cancellation. It was a fine episode, just not a spectacle like most finales are, but the episodes after that are still good, one of them being my personal favorite. Great characters, full of wit and some decent action. I only torture myself wishing it would come back for more than 10 episodes when I know it won't.

Buyer's Guide:
Available on a 2 disc DVD set, the dvd mail part of Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, and for free on digital streaming service Crackle.

4½ Unusual interrogations of cat murderers out of 5

Brooklyn Nine Nine (2013)

"I'm super glad you're here right now. Are you smelling that weed smell? Cuz a dude broke in, smoked weed and bolted."

"Do you think it's the same dude who left that bong there on the floor?"

"...yes?"

Police are not new to being TV show fodder, but it is rather rare to have the comedic version rather than a drama one especially with all the CSI's and Law and Order's out there. Even more rare that it is actually funny and entertaining. Brooklyn Nine Nine follows the detectives of the 99th precinct as they go through the idiosyncrasies of the NYPD while dealing with each other. Andy Samberg plays the main character Det. Jake Peralta who despite being a great detective is regularly dealing with the consequences of his crippling debt and man-child tendencies that irk his new, almost robotic Captain Holt played expertly by Andre Braugher. There is also his partner Det. Amy Santiago who is always out to prove herself and creepily latches onto the Captain as her would-be mentor. There is also Det. Rosa Diaz, who frequently scares everyone around her, cops and criminals alike. And there is Sgt. Terry Jeffords who would be a great cop if he wasn't plagued by crippling anxiety about police work since becoming a father.

It is quite hilarious as they go solve cases while clashing with each other as much as the criminals. All the characters are well realized and get more so as the season moves along. This adds good gravitas and endearing traits to the characters and their relationships in addition to the comedy which makes for a much more watchable show and only increases the surprise that more people aren't watching it. The episodes are also pretty self contained which means perfect for syndication which may be what some executive is going for as that means more money. An overarching plot doesn't really present itself until the end and it is then only set up as a launching point for season 2. Stellar writing, acting, and comic delivery.

Buyer's Guide:
Available streaming on Hulu, Amazon, Google Play, etc.

4 graffiti penises on minivans out of 5

Copper (2013)

If you want the gloves to come off... so be it.

The gloves certainly do come off for season 2 of BBC America's period drama, but it is mostly to the show's detriment. The plot becomes cluttered and haphazard with too many plotlines and characters coming and going that nothing is ever finished. The first episode sets up one character as a terrorizing and fearless villain that could easily have been an interesting arc for Detective Corcoran to go against, but is then dropped by the end of the episode. This could have been a clever bait and switch, but clearly isn't as it happens about 3 more times over the course of the season like the writers got bored or distracted by something shiny and switch to something else at the drop of a hat with all the indecisiveness of a housecat deciding whether it wants to go outside or not. Interesting events that are part of the time period like disease outbreaks and opium addiction are set up as major defining moments and then discarded with no resolution and minimal effect on the main story arc. What resolution there is from season 1 is written off in a rather implausible way just to seemingly get back to the status quo of season 1 like the show-runners finally pulled themselves out of their cocaine and/or alcohol binge haze to notice the colossal mess they were making and tried to clean it up in the worst way.

When the show does get back to what it does best (vicious period drama crimes and character dialogue) there are glimmers of the entertaining show it once was, but it mostly tries to fill the void with extended gore and basic cable nudity. The plots set up aren't even bad per se, just muddled because they were all shoved together into a gelatinous mass instead of spreading it out and letting what worked play through to some sort of closure. All of it is then dropped at the end of the season for an unnecessary and shoehorned bit involving Lincoln's assassination that is cheesy and should really have had nothing to do with the rest of the show. The show comes back to end on a regular cliffhanger, but then it was cancelled making it one more unresolved moment to add to the pile. Donal Logue puts in a decent turn as a sleazy politician, even though despite his actual Irish heritage he seemed out of place at times and Alfre Woodard makes a brief cameo of sorts as a freed slave that was palatable, but could have been better. Though it was one of the few plot threads that actually had a full arc, so that's something. Overall nothing other than the set and wardrobe designers were really on point and what character drama there is to enjoy is not up to snuff for the bar the show set for itself in its first season.

Buyer's Guide:
Available on iTunes and Amazon Instant Video with a forthcoming DVD release.

2 Sympathetic anti heroes that aren't sympathetic out of 5

Millennium: Season Three (2005)

After the mess they made of Season Two, neither Glen Morgan nor James Wong were invited back to contribute to Season Three. Good. Two new guys (Michael Duggan and Chip Johannessen) were given the task of cleaning up the apocalyptic shit-stains. Series creator Chris Carter also made a brief return, contributing by co-writing three episodes and overseeing some parts of the production.

Mostly the format returned to standalone episodes. It mimicked and attempted to recapture the psychological aspect that had made Season One a success. The event that ended the previous year is largely ignored; I've never been so pleased to have such an inconsistency.

Frank gets a new partner who's characterised by her overzealous enthusiasm in early episodes. But as the season progresses she takes on more useful traits, and by the end she becomes an integral part of the proceedings.

The Millennium Group are still sniffing around crime scenes, but the focus is primarily on Frank and his new role, which causes a minor internal conflict within him. His attentions are split unevenly between his daughter and his job. It seems as if the situation will elevate, but it peters out too soon and remains underdeveloped. There was something potentially sinister there that could've been brought to the fore but wasn't; perhaps they were holding that back for future seasons? We’ll never know.

There's another crap Hallowe’en episode, and an Xmas episode, but most of the bad comedy was excised; I'm pretending the episode with KISS didn't happen.

Extras include the Millennium/X-Files crossover. It was a great idea but it's a bad story with a very weak ending. It would've been nice if the writers had used the format to offer some kind of resolution or closure that the series was denied, but they didn't; it's simply an excuse to feature Frank Black in the X-Files.

22 episodes, approx 44 minutes each.

2½ chips off the old block out of 5

Pushing Daisies (2008)

"What's your plan? To bring him back and ask him where she is?"
 "..."
"That was a joke."
"Heh-heh."

Season 2 kicks off some time after the season 1 cliffhanger. The Pie-Hole waitress Olive is crumbling under the weight of the secrets she now knows, private investigator Emerson Cod continues in his quest for a certain missing person, alive-again Chuck wishes to reconnect with her past and The Pie-maker Ned wishes to stay connected to his can-never-touch sweetheart Chuck even as circumstances force new changes on them. All that digging into their collective pasts though may dredge up things that they didn't expect and may even be dangerous. All while continuing to solve bizarre and outlandish murders by reviving the victims to ask who killed them.

With the extended episode count, the show was going new and interesting places. But then it is quickly and hastily shoved into a mostly unsatisfying conclusion in the end due to cancellation. Having never recovered the lost audience from the writer's strike the previous year, ABC decided to not renew the show despite some mail-in efforts of daisies and pies by fans as well as petitions and the remaining episodes were sporadically burned off. Which is a pity because the aforementioned new stories were looking to be exciting and what is there is still wonderfully entertaining with colorful and fantastic aesthetics, strange and original murder mysteries and snappy banter. There is also a cadre of wonderful guest performances from many well-known actors throughout the episodes that bring great characters and stories to a bittersweet end.

Buyer's Guide:
Available in DVD and Blu Ray box sets and on iTunes, Netflix and Amazon.

4½ Alliterative names and gratuitous cleavage out of 5 

Copper (2012)

BBC America's first original show follows Detective Kevin Corcoran in 1860s New York as he searches for answers in the disappearance of his wife and the murder of his daughter while he was away fighting in the American Civil War. He searches while simultaneously solving crimes in the neighborhood of Five Points. He is known for being relentless and solving many cases. Unbeknownst to many though is he does it with the help of a doctor friend who he keeps secret because he is black and so the evidence gained through his scientific inquiry would be racially dismissed. Also with the help of his fellow immigrant cops they will catch criminals and root out corruption in a violent and corrupt manner.

The show could be dismissed as another procedural, but makes the most of the time period it's set in by solving crimes through old fashioned methods as this is before the advent of forensics and miranda rights. Also the characters are wonderfully flawed and interesting, like Corcoran himself who is probably the most upstanding dude around, but isn't above prostitutes, beating information out of suspects or generally bending the rules to solve a case. Or the brothel madam who dreams of high society despite the fact she gets nothing but neglect and derision from it. The racism proves an interesting plot device, but is somewhat underused which is puzzling given the setting. As Corcoran gets closer to answers, more questions will be raised and more violence will be dealt with.

The show is very well put together with characters and story but feels a little underwhelming in the sets. They don't feel as organic as the sets in say Hell On Wheels, another period drama. But that is understandable on it's cable budget and is just a smudge on an otherwise great 10 episodes.

Buyer's Guide:
Available now on iTunes and Amazon Instant Video.

4 Brass knuckles cracking real knuckles out of 5

Pushing Daisies (2007)

"You can't just touch someone's life and be done with it."
"Yes I can. That's how I roll."

Ned is The Pie-maker, a bakery owner who learned at a young age that he could revive dead things with a touch. The caveat is he can only keep what he touches alive for one minute or something else will die in its place. If he touches a revived thing again it will return to being dead forever. He uses this gift to help his business partner who is a private investigator by reviving murder victims to ask who killed them and collect the rewards. This becomes a problem when the case involves his childhood sweetheart being murdered on a cruise. Ned revives her, but is unable to re-dead her because of his love for her and ends up letting her live and she becomes the newest crime-solver. Ned also begins a relationship with her. One in which they cannot physically touch lest she die again in addition to an amorous third party in the bakery waitress and Ned's own neuroses.

Bryan Fuller created an odd mix of a show here. It is both very upbeat with its lighthearted soundtrack, bright, saturated colors and borderline saccharine romance, but also with a foot in the grim with it's gruesome murders and black comedy. It is by design reminiscent of a fairy tale (complete with a great narration by Jim Dale), but not the happily ever after kind. The old, uncensored and very adult tales before they were watered down into kid's bedtime stories.

Despite there being at least one dead body per episode, the show never veers too serious. The likeable characters are full of jokes and witty banter about the often very odd and hilarious deaths around them that range from the typical guns and strangulations to death by scratch n' sniff and being run over by monkeys. Add a cup of romance, relationships, jealousy and secrets for an entertaining and original mix of a show that despite its jumble description of a comedic detective fantasy drama is very coherent and very watchable. Season one's writer's strike truncation to 9 episodes is the only real problem as there should have been more of a season.

Buyer's Guide:
Available on DVD and Blu Ray box sets and on iTunes, Netflix and Amazon Instant Video.

5 "Bitch, I was in proximity!" out of 5

Millennium: Season Two (2005)

The team of Glen Morgan and James Wong took over writing duties to the second season, penning 12 of the 23 episodes and overseeing the production and direction taken by the remainder. I guess they're to blame for what unfolded.

The focus shifted away from Frank and the psychological drain his visions placed on him, into a more esoteric dead-end. The two producers heaped on a barrelful of supernatural intervention, quasi-religious cult bullshit, conspiracy theories and shady organisations, with endings pretending to be open to viewer interpretation but which are really the product of bad scripting that make little sense in themselves; if I wanted that I'd watch the X-Files. Even series creator Chris Carter (who was busy elsewhere and had virtually zero input) admitted to not having watched all of the episodes.

Morgan and Wong turned Frank into a dupe. They brought the Millennium Group to the fore; turning them into something they were never conceived to be. They struggled to deal with the relationship between Frank and his wife, Catherine. The amateurish direction that took tore the show right down the middle, removing the reason for Frank's initial involvement with the Group. Detective Bob Giebelhous is turned into an asshole Noir beat cop. The furthering of the religious motifs made sense but the way it was integrated was clumsy, overblown and painful to watch.

There are a number of 'comedy' episodes, which are the worst hours of TV I've ever forced myself to watch. Normally I'd hit stop, but I made myself endure every agonising minute. Glen Morgan's brother Darin was responsible for two of them.

Both Morgan and Wong refused an invitation to appear in the accompanying documentary; I'd be ashamed to show my face, too, if I were them.

23 episodes, approx 44 minutes each.

2 Millenniumistic is not a word out of 5

Millennium: Season One (2004)

Millennium is set in the late 1990s, in the years preceding the turn of the last millennium. Frank Black (played by Lance Henrikson, not the Pixies vocalist) is an ex-FBI agent trying to keep his family safe from the real horrors of the world. He may be officially retired but he's not out of commission. He's a member of the mysterious Millennium Group, a collective set up to aid police when the rising eschatology that Y2K heralded manifests in acts of seemingly arbitrary violence, planned ritualistic murder, sacrilegious torture, etc. Frank witnesses all the nasty things that we pretend don't exist.

He has a gift/curse that lets him experience traumatic visions, placing him in a killer's mind at the time of an attack. By working backwards, anticipating forwards, profiling and forensics, he's able to get a clearer picture of a criminal and their crime.

It's fair to say that the series went to some very dark places. It was grounded in reality but is ultimately a dichotomy in that while it strives for realism it asks us to accept that Frank has unexplained visions. If you're willing to accept that, there's much to enjoy in Season One.

Besides the occasional and incidental pairings with his wife, Catherine, and regular team mate, Peter Watts, the drama required Frank to be alone with his thoughts, as he was alone with his visions. Consequently, it lacked the buddy dynamic of series creator Chris Carter's other TV show at the time, The X-Files. But where X-Files used conspiracy and aliens to mask its occasional lack of a satisfying conclusion, Millennium had no such crutches, so when it fell flat it did so openly. Conversely, when it worked it was like a small screen version of David Fincher's Se7en (1995).

22 episodes, approx 44 minutes each.

3½ ouroboros' out of 5

Lock, Stock... (2000)

An off-shoot from Guy Ritche's début feature Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). It may sound like a no-brainer, but if you didn't like the film, you probably won't like the series. Conversely, if you enjoyed the film, you'll likely feel the same way about the series. It focuses on four guys: Bacon, Jamie, Moon, and Lee. They run The Lock, a pub where shady deals go down daily. They're always trying to make that big score that'll set them up for life, but life has other plans.

Just like the film, it's set in the grimy east end of London, populated by the same kind of colourful criminal types. Each venture follows the same complex structure: it starts with a seemingly easy way to make some quick cash that quickly spirals into a clusterfuck of unforeseen circumstances, leading to much hilarity, usually followed by the four main characters deep in the shit.

The pilot episode kicks things off in style. It's almost as long as the film, and had the budget been higher it could've even been worked into the beginnings of a worthy sequel. The remaining episodes have a visibly smaller budget (the pretend horse is particularly hilarious). The stories are wrapped up a little too quickly in the shorter format, but the characters are strong enough to keep it engaging.

There are some recurring characters, the most prominent of which is 'Miami Vice', a bald, hard-nut mob boss who seems to have his dirty fingers dangling in everything shady, from porn to guns. Miami is fantastic, without him it would have suffered from the villain of the week syndrome. Overall, it's a great series. It's just a shame there are so few episodes.

One 87 minute pilot, and six episodes approx 50 minutes long each.

3½ kebabs out of 5