By ANDY GILCHRIST
Staff Writer
The most popular genre on television today is easily the cop show. Every week, fans tune in to see their favorite TV detectives, with their own quirks to make them stand out, get a new case, interview suspects, and follow a red herring or two, before finding out who the killer is and arrest them, all in 42 minutes (plus credits).
Every police procedural follows this formula, making them often boring and predictable, with only the uniqueness of the characters causing viewers to tune in. The thing that makes NBC’s newest cop show Ironside different at first seems to be utterly brilliant: the lead character is in a wheelchair. With such an intriguing premise and a very talented cast, it seems like a series that can’t miss.
But it does. The show tries way too hard to be like other dark and bleak crime dramas, like The Wire or The Shield. Other than Ironside himself, most of the characters come off as unlikeable, one-note anti-heroes, partially due to the focus of the show being almost entirely on Ironside himself.
Though he is a compelling character, the rest of the cast and the story must be given their time if this series wants to last longer than one season.
The series revolves around NYPD detective Robert Ironside (Blair Underwood), a cop shot in the line of duty and paralyzed from the waist down two years ago. After his injury, Ironside sued the NYPD after they let him go and got himself reinstated as a detective, along with being appointed commander of an elite team of cops he got to handpick.
They are Holly (Spencer Grammer), the tough daughter of a mob boss, Teddy (Neal Bledsoe), a former investment banker turned New York cop, and Virgil (Pablo Schreiber), the toughest of the bunch so far. Ironside’s team technically reports to Captain Ed Rollins (Kenneth Choi), but he has absolutely no power over Ironside’s justice-at-all-costs mentality.
Finally, there’s Ironside’s ex-partner Gary Stanton (Brent Sexton). Before Ironside’s injury, he and Gary were best friends and New York’s toughest duo, closing cases by any means necessary.
Gary was there the night Ironside was shot, but couldn’t save him. Since then, Gary lost his badge and nerve, and has descended into a life of alcoholism. After he has to bail him out of jail one night, Ironside makes it his mission to help Gary turn his life back around and become one of New York’s finest once again.
The series is based on a 1960s to 70s crime drama of the same name that saw TV legend Raymond Burr, best known for playing Perry Mason, portray the disabled detective.
This new series has almost nothing in common with the original, other than the name and paralysis of the lead character. Even the setting has been moved, from San Francisco to New York. Gone is Raymond Burr’s plumpish figure, always wearing a suit, replaced by Blair Underwood’s muscular, headstrong near-rogue cop, who wears a leather jacket instead of dress clothes.
Underwood’s performance as Ironside is impressive. There was initial controversy over whether or not a paralyzed actor should have been hired, but since Ironside is shown walking and running in flashbacks, this was impossible.
Underwood commits fully to his character, playing him as a confrontational, clearly on-the-edge detective, who is still haunted by his accident years later.
Here is a man who will literally get into the backseat of a car alone with a child molester in order to find out where his latest victim is. A man who will order a hostage be shot in the leg so the shooter can be taken down. And yet, he’s still a man who will break down crying and screaming when he’s alone over the pressure of his job and his disability.
As for the rest of the cast, there’s not just not enough information yet, as the audience knows almost nothing about them after one episode. Granted, any show’s pilot episode is often light on characterization, focusing on story and action to get network execs to order more episodes, where the characters are then fleshed out.
But this is ridiculous. Ironside’s entire team is described above as tough because that’s all that’s known about them so far. They don’t even have last names yet! The Holly and Teddy characters are given their defining quality in one scene and a line of dialogue, respectively. I
t’s so bad that Pablo Schreiber, perhaps the best actor of the three based on recent performances on Orange is the New Black and Law & Order: SVU, is given literally nothing to do but kick in doors and mess up apartments “looking for clues” in the first episode.
The show’s tone, meanwhile, is uninspired. The series wastes no time telling audiences that Ironside is New York’s toughest cop: The opening scene shows Ironside in the back of that car with the pedophile, literally punching him the face every time he refuses to give Ironside the location of the girl.
But we’ve seen this done before and done better. Shows like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad gave us psychotic anti-heroes who not only did dark and evil things, but were also developed characters right from the start.
Ironside’s team is merely a group of loose cannons who all unequivocally follow the philosophy of breaking the law to enforce it.
Quite frankly, the writers and producers of Ironside seem to be trying to remake the pinnacle of dark cop shows, The Shield, instead of the Raymond Burr original, making it unclear as to why the property was dusted off in the first place if almost everything was going to be thrown out and replaced with a more contemporary show.
NBC’s newest crime drama, Ironside, is trying to give viewers something new by putting its lead character in a wheelchair. But it’s still something we’ve seen before: the dark, troubled anti-hero leading those just like him.
The series is so far off to a rocky start, with poor characterization and bland storylines. The series will need to address these problems immediately if it hopes to maintain viewers and become as respected and long-lasting as the show it claims it’s based on.
