Bosch: Legacy

I am a big Bosch fan, but the Legacy sequel series is a couple of notches below the original. First, J. Edgar the interesting supporting characters from the original only make cameo appearances in Legacy. The exception being two of the least interesting characters from the original, Honey and Maddie. Honey is a fabulously wealthy ambulance-chasing lawyer who seems to have developed a heart of gold through the television years. Maddie has become a bizarre component of every plot. Despite her slight physique she runs down bad guys and manhandles them. Though she also becomes a super-victim damsel in distress at times. Bosch himself is now a private investigator but strangers accord him the respect of a cop and always spill lots of information for him. An unfortunate addition to the series is one of these Mission Impossible tech gurus whose skills border on magic rather than what is technically possible. Sorry to bash away here but I enjoyed the original series and it did not jump the shark for me. I will keep watching if there is a season 3 of Legacy but my hopes and anticipation have been tempered.

It's getting a bit tiring that Bosch runs to a hacker to solve his problems every time and this hacker being able to hack pretty much anything. This is completely unrealistic. What's also unrealistic is how he does it.

In 2023 writers should be acutely aware of technology and how things really work OR hire a consultant to review the script.

This is just very lazy writing - a cop out (pun intended).

I wish this show went a bit more out their stiff direction also. The direction and cinematography feels formulaic, just supporting the story and no room for creativity. The acting from the daughter of Bosch as well as Chandler shows a limited palette. Are these actors allowed and incentivized to put in more humanity? Show the rough edges?

Luckily we see Bosch a bit more emotional in the early episodes of season 2.

This is good where Bosch was great. Titus Welliver is good, but like a lot of the reveiws posted, Ms Linz is not the best and even less convincing as an LA Police Officer. Not to point out as I am not sure the LA police would allow two uniformed female police officers out on patrol, with one in training. Watching her take down grown men is just laughable, taking into account her very slight frame.

It's a shame they couldn't use the Lincoln Lawyer (MIck Haller) character, there would've been a lot to explore there, regarding them being paternal siblings, and on opposite sides of the legal fence. Thus not having to rely on the Maddie cop and Honey Chandler timeline.

Aside from these quibles, I gave Bosch:Legacy a solid 6-7, not quite as good as the original, but better than avarage, primarily due to Titus Welliver.

The show is solid with strong familiar characters. It's not the same as the gritty cop drama that was the original Bosch, but it is developing nicel and I have high hopes that it will develop into an 8 or 9. But so far after 3 episodes it's a strong 7. Which is high praise as most of the stuff on TV is barely worthy of a 4 or 5. For me it loses a point because the intro music is horrendous. Like someone should be fired horrendous. They needed to replicate the dark jazzy intro from the original, not use some odd 1980's Miami Vice soundtrack reject. Bosch was one of the only show where I did not click "skip intro". I won't make that mistake with Bosch Legacy. Blech.

(Review updated after Season 2).

Having resigned from the LAPD Harry Bosch is now a private investigator. Business has been quite slow but some decent cases are starting to come his way. He soon finds himself working with Honey Chandler, once his nemesis then his career-saving attorney. Meanwhile his daughter Maddie is learning the ropes as a police officer.

I loved the original Bosch series so was initially a bit disappointed with this series. Things moved quite slowly and disjointedly and the engagement levels were fairly low. One of the best aspects to the original series was the police procedural stuff and that isn't present here, well not to the same degree. There is very little of the police stuff and the only link to that is Maddie, the rookie cop. That was initially the worst part of the new series as she seems not cut out to be a cop.

There's also less variety of characters than the original series. Another great thing about that series was that Harry wasn't the only character in the spotlight or worth supporting, there were people like Jerry, Lt. Billets, Chief Irving, Crate and Barrell, Maddie, Eleanor and the host of secondary characters who, through great character development in the show, we got to know well.

Here, it's just about Harry, Maddie and Honey Chandler, making for a narrow focus.

It also didn't help that I watched this straight after watching all seven seasons of Bosch, making comparison unavoidable. A decent gap would have made it easier to view this series in isolation.

However, after a few episodes things start to fall into place. A few good mysteries and plots develop, the intrigue and action ramps and things get much more engaging. Even Maddie's sub-plot gets more interesting as we see the stuff she has to deal with a cop, how this affects her and how this overlaps with Harry and Honey Chandler's work. It makes for an engaging character arc.

Season 2 picks up where S1 left off and provides heaps of intrigue and action. It also brings Maddie more to the fore, making it feel less of a one-man band sort of show. "Mo" Bassi also gets to feature more, further broadening the characters and the engagement. On the downside, there's a few more contrivances than normal - Episode 2 felt particularly rushed and implausible - but it's still fantastically entertaining.

Season 3 was promoted as the final season, making me worry that the writers would just phone it in. Thankfully I was very mistaken. Rather than coasting the writers crammed about three seasons worth of plots into one season making for an incredible pace and turnover of cases. This was great as there was never a dull moment though I would have preferred some slower periods just to increase the intrigue and tension rather than rushing to the conclusion.

Overall, this series isn't quite as good as the original - I still prefer the police procedural stuff and multi-character aspect of that - but being of the same level of quality as the original was always going to be difficult to achieve, that being one of the greatest TV drama series of all time.

Season ratings: S1&2: 9/10, S3 9.5.