FOX
At this week’s upfronts, the major broadcast networks introduced a lot of police and other crimefighting series for next season. I know. In other news, water announced that it will continue to be wet.
Regular readers know that I am not a huge fan of cop shows, except, of course, for the ones that I like. That is to say, I don’t hate the genre, but if you make a meat-and-potatoes procedural—even, sorry, a well-executed one like Law & Order—I’m just not interested. Life is too short. It is not too short, however, for The Wire, or The Shield, or Justified. You need to do something different.
Say this for The Good Guys, which previews on Fox tonight, before starting on Mondays in June: it is something different. And judging by the pilot at least, it’s a blast.
Good Guys is a show about two police partners who are wildly different: one is a renegade, and one goes by the book. (Ahem. I did say this show was different, didn’t I? Bear with me.) Jack Bailey (Colin Hanks) is a smart cop who’s run afoul of department politics. As punishment, he’s been assigned to a small-crimes unit to babysit Dan Stark (Bradley Whitford), a former hero who’s gone to seed, and is still reliving his ’70s glory days.
So yes, a few cop stereotypes. What distinguishes The Good Guys is that it’s essentially an action comedy, which lustily embraces those stereotypes, sending them up while also carrying a warm affection for them—an affection visually embodied in Whitford’s museum-curated soupstrainer mustache and aviator glasses.
Those visuals, and several great slapstick set pieces, would be enough to make The Good Guys’ pilot (from Burn Notice’s Matt Nix) a good time. What gives it the potential to be something special—if not something especially deep or ambitious—is how wholeheartedly and unembarrassedly Whitford throws himself into the role. Stark is cocky, out of touch, mistrustful of computers, street-smart, book-stupid and drunk at least half the time. And Whitford bravely inhabits his gone-to-pot character—if you last saw him in The West Wing or Studio 60, you’ll be wondering why Bradley Whitford’s dad has a TV show now—without making him simply ridiculous. But I wouldn’t sell Hanks short, either: he displays the kind of straight-arrow charm he’s had on shows like Mad Men but also shows real comic timing in his not-entirely-straight-man role.
I’m still not entirely sure how The Good Guys can sustain its frothy premise. (How many weeks can the duo investigate small crimes that lead to huge ones?) And funny and inventive as it is, it’s still essentially a procedural, one that I may not feel compelled to catch every week (particularly when fall rolls around). But it’s an uncomplicated good time, which shows that the cop genre may have a beer gut and an outdated mustache, but it still has a little life in it yet.