Jasmine Sahu is well suited with this new American drama exclusive to Dave.
Lois Cameron explains why this series is much more than your average cosy period drama.
The last episode of this series sees Sherlock and Moriarty attempt to solve the final problem with devastating consequences.
With major cast changes afoot, Jacob Martin ponders whether Being Human can live up to its own scarily high standard.
The pilot episode of Southland left me wondering if I’d just stumbled upon a potential TV gem. I knew very little about the show before I watched it and I’m honestly not regularly drawn to cop dramas. However, now that I’ve seen the first episode, I’m glad I decided to give this one a look in.
The show follows the training of young police rookie Ben Sherman (Benjamin McKenzie) by a hard-as-nails seasoned LA cop, John Cooper (Michael Cudlitz). It’s made very clear in the first episode that Cooper's main characteristic is his no-nonsense attitude towards his job - he quite simply tells Sherman: "You're a cop because you don't know how not to be one. If you feel that way, you're a cop. If you don't, you're not. You decide". We've also got Detective Lydia Adams (Regina King) who is both a hardworking police officer and the primary caregiver of her mother, as well as her partner Detective Russell Clarke (Tom Everett Scott), an unhappily married father of three. A number of other characters were introduced in the episode, and I’m expecting them to become more important as the season progresses.
One of the things that struck me most about Southland was the intriguing way that it introduces its characters. A mention of someone’s name and/or position isn't clumsily slid into the dialogue in a way that some other TV shows might. So much so that by the episode’s end I still didn’t know a number of characters' names. I can’t tell if this is a good thing or not - but I appreciate the more realistic take on character introductions. It's also shot in a very realistic way, with many scenes feeling like you’re seeing the action through the eyes of someone who is really there.
The narrative style is very different to most other police dramas I’ve seen. Oddly, none of the focus is actually on the solving of the crimes; in fact, we even follow the characters to multiple crime scenes without any sort of resolution. It would appear that the real aim of Southland is to provide a look into the everyday lives of police officers. If the last scene is anything to go by, some of that focus will be on their family lives too.
When it comes to the crime scenes Southland doesn’t shy away from gore - one scene reveals a dead body that’s been partially eaten by a pack of dogs (disgusting, right?) - but it doesn't use it excessively. For the most part it just suggests the gruesome and horrific crimes, and it’s this “fear-of-the-unknown” style tension that is probably the biggest success of the pilot episode. It really gets your heart racing. I can’t imagine what it would be like to see some of these crimes; visualising them in my mind was awful enough.
The first season of Southland is seven episodes long, and I’m certainly going to watch on to find out if this intriguing take on cop drama continues to work. There’s no doubt about the fact that it has bags of potential - and I love the idea of seeing how cops are affected by crime, rather than just watching them solve it. From what I’ve seen in the first episode, it’s very possible Southland could turn out to be a rather incredible and unique series.
You must log in to submit a comment.
