It’s rare for a new scripted network series to find a home in the summertime. We’ve seen plenty of shows make — or break — their bones on hot summer nights, but how many of them get renewed and return to the off-season that made them successful in the first place?
Canadian import Rookie Blue has done just that. Renewed almost immediately after its pilot aired, the show returned at the end of June for its second season. A show about newbie cops (and the potential for Canadian jokes)? What could go wrong?
A tricky question, that.
See, I thought most, if not all, of the stories were good. Even the opening takedown, where Dov (Gregory Smith) gets an assist from a slingshot-wielding kid, was cool. I know he needed to confiscate the thing (did he?), but he could have at least cracked a smile. That was funny, kid!
The car dealership sting was great. I enjoyed the opportunity to really watch at least six characters work, even if I assume regular viewers would consider the episode not representative of how things usually are. But the setting, particularly the need to adapt to a new environment and work somewhat undercover, really lent itself to seeing numerous sides of each character. Is Sam (Ben Bass) a rookie or a veteran? Either way he was head-and-shoulders better at everything than everyone.
I’m not sure how much I’d enjoy watching yet another lovelorn tale, this one with the triangle of Dov, Chris (Travis Milne), and Gail (Charlotte Sullivan). Is there any way that Dov’s parting words to Chris didn’t mean he’d be competing with him for Gail’s heart (even though he obviously isn’t the type of guy who’d ever do that, until he does, and blah, blah, blah, we’ve seen it all before)? Does the show even need that tired plot?
But I enjoyed Dov and Chris’s venture to find the grow house that turned out to be a meth lab. How cool would it have been if the workers had returned and Chris had planted himself inside the locked door of the lab with a gun? I wasn’t hoping for a bloodbath, but a standoff would have added an interesting dynamic to an already exciting story.
At first I was psyched to see Missy Peregrym, but I quickly grew disinterested in her. Was Andi on Reaper as lacking in presence? I can’t remember. And her fiance’s story was the only one that I really didn’t enjoy … even Andy and Traci’s (Enuka Okuma) hunt for the runaway criminal was fun.
So what else do you need besides a great frame to work with? Well, a stable of great characters always helps; in a pinch plain good ones will do. But I don’t think I enjoyed a single one of the characters as much as I tolerated most of them. I know it takes time to get down with characters, but … I don’t know; they just didn’t do it for me here.
But was the rest good enough to give the rookies another shot? Maybe. I just hate getting stuck in that quagmire, where a show’s not good enough to season pass but not bad enough to give up on. I’ll have to give this one some additional thought.
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Jul 26, 2011 @ 16:00 EST5EDT
