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—NBC Listings |
Firstly, a mini-rant: WHY THE HELL ARE ALL POLICE DRAMAS SO DAMN COOKIE-CUTTER PREDICTABLE. End of mini-rant. Okay, so Southland premiered last week with respectable ratings, and with good cause. It's the equivalent of Cops with a ting of CSI drama, minus the aggravating aha! moments of clarity that miraculously resolve an episode's plot. (Closure is great, for sure, but inexplicable and fantastical connections of evidence is not.) Rookie LAPD copper Ben Sherman's (Benjamin McKenzie) transition from what seems to have been a Hollywood hills lifestyle to a life as a street crime sweeper is as much interesting as it is real and his training officer, John Cooper (Michael Cudlitz), provides a healthy balance of 5-0 humor and glum exposition of police procedure to make his character bearable and, more importantly, believable. If you want to latch onto an LA-centric police drama whose No.1 rule is "No Bullshit, Please," look no further.
Tune in to Southland tonight at 10\9c on NBC.
Missed the pilot episode? Check out Episode 1 on Hulu or on NBC.com.