STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
SEASON ONE
Harlee Santos (Jennifer Lopez) is a single mom and a member of a police department that consistently pushes the boundaries in order to get the job done. She has a close relationship with the head of the team, Matt Wozniak (Ray Liotta), who helped her put away her abusive partner many years ago. But their luck finally runs out when Harlee is caught in a sting, and is forced by the veritable Agent Cole (Robert Stahl) to turn informant on the group in order to stay in daughter Christina's life. It is a situation that comes to have far reaching and shattering consequences she couldn't have imagined.
This, the latest in what seems to be a production line of American 'cop shows', has a curious pairing in the shape of Jennifer Lopez and Ray Liotta. Respectively, they're two performers whose work I've always had a curious eye for, even if it's pretty low rent, far more in the case of Liotta than Lopez, whose music was probably more of a draw for me. Nevertheless, each star individually is in a position at the moment where their films don't attract much attention anymore, and so a TV show was probably the best option for both of them. That said, that's not to say putting them together will result in the best chemistry, and Shades of Blue certainly boils down to nothing more in the end than an average cop show.
It's a shame I don't watch more TV shows in general (even less excusable with all the 'box set' offers thrown into bundle packages these days!) and that there were no stars I was familiar with that could have drawn me to watch other modern, but more established shows like The Wire and The Shield, which this has drawn comparisons with. Nonetheless, that still doesn't mean I'm any less knowledgeable with the clichés, which this thirteen part show goes through the motions with, and tests your patience with over the same number of weeks.
A little more of a mature wine now, Lopez fits into the lead role and fills it out with a bit more presence than she might have ten/fifteen years ago, but that still doesn't mean she's the best actress, and she just doesn't have the chops to really engage you in such a commitment. Liotta simply deserves better, doing his best with the material at hand, and no less of an effective, slick presence in his role, but ultimately just the ringmaster of a disaffected circus.
It tries hard and aims high, and certainly tries to weave some ambitious ideas into a multi layered story, but there's just not enough to distract us from the fact there's really nothing to see here that hasn't been done before, and better, elsewhere. **
SEASON TWO
After her brutal take-down of her abusive ex at the end of the last series, Harlee Santos now has the mother of all dirty secrets to keep from her colleagues and her nearest and dearest. Meanwhile, she and her captain Wozniak find themselves running afoul of feared local gangster Bianci (Richie Costa) during a bust in a restaurant, which leads to a string of busts and retribution from there. Wozniak also finds himself in dead lumber with his city councillor friend Julia (Anna Gunn), who is running for mayor, but has a few stings of her own up her sleeve. All the while, Harlee continues to be controlled by the devious IA agent Stahl, who is cooking up a deadly master plan.
It's always the way that in the first series, a show is always trying to find its feet, and establish its set up and characters, without having that solid foundation to really be truly satisfying in its own right. This has been more so the case with other shows than SOB, not to say it isn't that way at all, just the first series had already magnetised that raw edge that comes to define this series. This part is going somewhere much darker and seedier than the previous series, really trying to seize that dynamic edge that typifies American cop shows, with a bare minimum of humour and a gritty, no holds barred approach that hits that much harder this time.
The first series obviously proved successful enough to warrant this series' existence, and conversely, lead stars Liotta and Lopez this time round fit the skin of their characters that much better, and really make the roles their own. It's as though they've decided rather than slide back into the obscurity their careers were in, they'll own this new good thing they've got going for them, and are all the more satisfying for it. Some solid support players from the last series are back, along with some compelling new ones, and all in all, a sprightly melting pot is created that makes it much more interesting than the first one.
Yes, the clichés are still in effect, as well as some clunky dialogue that feels terribly forced and unconvincing coming from even the most talented mouth. But second time round, it has to be said this series has taken a commendable turn for the better. ***
SEASON THREE
A deadly shoot-out at an all night diner once again lights the match for Detective Harlee Santos (Jennifer Lopez), who has managed to escape from the clutches of the demented Agent Robert Stahl (Warren Kole) under whose shadow she now lives a worried existence. As the head of the department, Detective Matt Wozniak (Ray Liotta) must once again guide his morally dubious unit through a minefield as the fallout from the diner shooting plays out, plunging him and his crew into a deadly and intricate web of deceit and deception, as they come up against the 'Blue wall' of police corruption, and fall at the mercy of the corrupt Captain Ramsey (Bruce McGill.)
For this third and final (three is the magic number, as De La Soul once wisely noted) series of this US cop drama, the writers seem to have taken a bit of inspiration from L.A. Confidential, one of the best police dramas of all time. With the characters now firmly established, we're now left with not entirely honourable people to root for (who behave sometimes downright despicably!) It seems a smart move to wrap it all up now, rather than let it drag on like many US series do, but whether this is down to wisdom on the producers part, or just lower ratings, is unknown.
It's as pleasingly intricate and elaborate as ever, requiring your full attention to take in all the twists and turns, but it could do with taking a breather, and maybe coming up for some air, with seemingly every scene delivered in an overly dramatic manner, with the actors performing even the slightest development in the script in the most theatrical way imaginable. Most of the dialogue fails to slip off the tongue in the most convincing way, either, none of it making you believe its how people like this would talk.
All the converging subplots and characters have to tie together to make the ending a suitable resolution to it all, but while it has some good points, even that has some silly touches that spoil the tone of what it gets right. This has been an inspired and ambitious series, but one of varying hits and misses, that altogether allow it to not entirely be the sum of its parts. ***
