In Plain Sight - In der Schusslinie

Mary McCormack is the only believable actor/actress i have seen in a police drama series since Helen Mirren in the early Prime Suspect stories. She is not like your Without a Trace or Numbers cops, that seem to be posing for every shot, or putting folders over there bodies to cover up the fact that they are going to have a baby, Mary McCormack's character in "In Plain Sight" is the reason to watch this program, she really is amazing, as a in your face, don't give a damn, down to earth veteran US Marshall the stories are not bad, getting better in fact, some of the other cast are a bit hammy, , so what, over all its an entertaining show, with some great one liners, plenty of action and i can only hope that the networks realize that they have little gem of a series here and give it a fair chance, and not kill it off before it starts, so to speak.

I have to catch up with the beginning of the first episode, but what I saw tells me USA has a winner on its hands with IN PLAIN SIGHT. The main character, a rather fetching but ball-busting federal marshal played by Mary McCormack, is a swipe of Karen Sisco from Elmore Leonard's OUT OF SIGHT, crossed with Jordan Cavanaugh of CROSSING JORDAN and even Adrian Monk of MONK, to name just a few influences. McCormack racks them and stacks them with the best of her male counterparts. Predictably, she has a troubled personal life and a ditzy mother, played winningly by Leslie Ann Warren, 62, but not looking a day over 50. In the opener, it's her birthday and she just knows Mom has planned a surprise party. She also has a murder to solve and some people to put into witness protection. By the end, all is well, of course. And so on to the next episode. McCormack, a TV and movie veteran, is the whole show. The majority of the supporting cast is made up of your basic generic TV actors, looking a little too young and too clean cut and too thin. Sounds like WITHOUT A TRACE, don't it? McCormack does a post-coital nude scene in the opener, clearly to keep the guys watching. My theory is that we will never see her naked again. But that's OK. She's just fun to watch.

After a lifetime in law enforcement, I don't like cop shows. The vast majority of them take themselves waaaay too seriously, and Hollywood displays very little understanding of how cops and police departments work. Oh, they have their technical advisors who show them how cops do tactical stuff, and they do manage to get that stuff mostly right, but it's the day to day stuff that they screw up. For example, how many times have shows depicted a detective leaving some major department and going to another city and immediately becoming a detective? Sorry folks, it just doesn't work that way. I don't care if you have a gold shield in the Big Apple, it you move to another state, you're going to go through the entire testing process all over again, go through another academy, and start out as a junior patrol cop working a beat.

So I don't like cop shows. Except.....

Mary Shannon has to be the most irascible, sarcastic, cynical, wry, blunt pretend LEO to ever pin on a TV badge. I love every minute she and Marshall are on the screen. Whoever writes for the show, especially the dialogue, is a genius. Practically every other line Mary utters is something that I wish I had thought of. At the same time, I identify with both her partner Marshall, and her supervisor Stan. Mary is the sort of partner and subordinate that you love to work with while simultaneously dreading whatever they're going to do next.

The show is hardly a model of realism, but I've given up on Hollywood ever getting that right. I watch the show because I want to see Mary cause Stan to pull out the rest of his hair, to hear her lay into some pompous FBI agent, to tell some protectee or family member just what an idiot they are, or to cause Marshall to go off on some existential tangent. You go girl!!

Mary Shannon (Mary McCormack) is a U.S. Marshal who spends her time relocating and working with federal witnesses in the witness protection program. Based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Mary works with her partner Marshall Mann (Frederick Weller). She is a tough fast-talking agent who won't back down, but her family life is a mess. Her father is a criminal. Her overly dependent mother Jinx (Lesley Ann Warren), and younger sister Brandi (Nichole Hiltz) are even more of a mess.

Mary McCormack is amazing and has great platonic chemistry with Frederick Weller. It's a simple, fun cop procedural and everything works. The dysfunctional family and love life are all great.

Although it's hard to decide the future of this show based on its pilot, I would assume that this show will do well on USA. While it's not quite as good as the advertisements led it to be, I enjoyed the first episode and the characters it developed. As others have mentioned, I hope that it does not end up focused around solving murders, but rather the families the Marshalls need to hide. Mary is a refreshingly sarcastic woman with great one-liners and an over-all amusing personality. There is a great juggle between local crimes, witness protection, and personal affairs. Hopefully the rest of the episodes will live up to the standards the pilot has set.