Starring: Taye Diggs, Kathleen Robertson, Tom Felton, Richard Schiff, Steven Weber, Currie Graham

Created By Steven Bochco

An interesting start to a series, perhaps not entirely original or engaging. We see two partners, one is a single mother (Robertson) and the other is a man (Diggs) watching his wife slowly die of a disease. They’re both good cops, and they’re drawn into the murder of a random guy in a slum. Over the course of the pilot, they piece together that he knows a billionaire tech genius (Felton), who is probably guilty, and at the end of the episode another person he knows is dead. Draco Malfoy is clearly a murderer. Right?

Well, we wouldn’t need nine more episodes to figure it out if it were that easy. Steven Weber comes in at the end of the episode, and he’s freaking Steven Weber. He must be more involved than that, right? The question is… did Felton’s Mark Zuckerberg wannabe kill both of them himself? Either of them? Did he hire someone to kill them? He’s definitely involved in at least one of their murders, it’s too coincidental for him not to be… especially since the series paints him clearly as an asshole, and a little unhinged.

Felton is the most dynamic character in the episode, with Diggs offering bizarre bursts of rage to remind us that he’s suffering. Felton’s character is the reason to watch the show, right now. Everyone else hasn’t quite been written a palate of emotions, with the exception of Diggs, who is prone to random outbursts of violence because his wife is about to die. What will happen when she does die? Perhaps he’ll be a more fully fleshed out character.

I might come back for the second episode, because I’m a fan of Diggs and Felton, and Steven Bochco has a long track record with cop dramas.

I liked the pilot, I didn’t love it. I felt like the show didn’t quite answer my question of “why should I watch the next episode?”, and I didn’t. I could have (there are currently 4 episodes available to watch). But I decided to wait. It wasn’t a particularly bad pilot, but in a world where everyone and their brother is making an original series for a cable network, you have to do better than OK.

FINAL GRADE: C+