The Inside

Network: Fox; Genre: Crime/Mystery; Content Rating: TV-14 (for strong violence, gore, language and deviant adult and sexual content); Perspective: Contemporary (star range: 1 - 4);

Seasons Reviewed: Complete Series (1 season)

Rebecca Loche (Rachael Nicols) is a gifted criminal profiler who has been recruited by Peter Coyote's Web to be part of an elite Los Angeles FBI team that solves the most horrific and deviant of crimes. The subtle twist here is that instead of being a profiler of the killer, Loche's talent is to profile the victim, under the assumption that with the right bait they can ensnare the killer. Hints are given about a traumatic event in her own childhood, once a kidnapped child herself. Web believes in the rookie. "She has a gift - forged in pain" Coyote tersely barks to convince the team to take her in. The team also including Adam Baldwin ("Firefly") and Katie Finneran, who stole the show in "Wonderfalls" now kept straight and dry here. Jay Harrington ("Coupling") gets saddled with the "I-believe-her" straight-man role that the show goes to when it can't have a women step in to save the day.

With TV now slowly becoming an assembly line for crime/detective shows and each one a dime a dozen, it seems the latest way to differentiate yourself from "Law & Order" and "CSI" is to crank up the violence and gore. This, along with last Fall's "Numb3rs", looks to be the first of several new shows about a team that goes after only "the most brutal and gruesome crimes". I know Fox throws up Viewer Discretion warnings like they're going out of style, but everyone - particularly parental activist groups who somehow got the idea that everything on TV should be tailored to kids - heed it on this one. As "The Shield" is the most brutal show on cable, "The Inside" is the most brutal on network TV. So far.

A 2 episode arc where Coyote is fired and we suspect him to unhinge and compulsively begin his own killing spree marks a high point and shows us how well this show could keep us guessing - and how attached we'd become to the ensemble. Then there is "Everything Nice" (involving a child who gutted a classmate in a gated community) which is downright chilling - and a little manipulative. "Inside" is deadly serious stuff, with Finneran dropping a dry one liner every now and then. I do find it almost comical how quickly and recklessly the team members draw and brandish their guns.

On the surface, there is not much about "The Inside" that breaks the crime series mold. But the show has an all-star pedigree behind it, created by Tim Minear ("Wonderfalls", "Angel") and Howard Gordon ("24") for Fox's favored Imagine Television. Within the framework it is well done. The crimes are inventive and the killers are nasty. There is a thoughtfulness and attention to pace, detail in the unfolding story that we usually don't get in procedure-oriented crime shows. It is dark, slick, stylish, but now show-offish and wickedly entertaining.

What I appreciate most is the care that is taken to unfold the story so that there is time in the 3rd act for a real rollicking climax. When Loche becomes the bait and finds herself in a harrowing, appropriately milked set piece on a subway, drugged in a bathtub or held hostage by a killer's monologue, it takes more than the simple quick-fix shot to the head (that so many other shows tiresomely use) to get her out. Nichols really gets put through the paces here. Let's just say, there is a little hint of David Fincher misogyny coursing through the show. She is quite good. Someone to watch in the future.

Back to the monologue in question, from "Pre-filer". I know it may sound cliché, but when delivered by guest star Michael Emerson (who has played this role perfectly since "The Practice") I will lap it up every time. "Pre-filer" is the best of the lot, featuring a serial killer who hunts potential serial killers. It is just the kind of terrific twist that could have been this show's hallmark.

If this nasty stuff sounds as juicy to you as it was to me, you'll know why I like this show. "The Inside" was part of Fox's "Summer Season" which, to me, always felt inappropriate scheduling given the tone of the show. "The Inside" is a twisted atmospheric thriller best viewed on a cold winter night, tucked under a blanket with the lights off, not in the care-free vacation heat of summer. Fox should have also known it would have been swallowed whole by their "So You Think You Can Dance" - a shameless capitalization of ABC's dance-themed, summer remake hit "Dancing With the Stars".

I had high hopes for the Fox network with the departure of Gail Berman as Entertainment President and the installation of Peter Liguori, who is credited with helping make FX the juggernaut network it is today. Berman's tenure at Fox consisted of it's own reign of terror, a bloodbath that buried every creative scripted show she could find before anyone noticed it and replaced it with mindless, cost effective reality shows with the goal of temporary ratings gold at the expense of any future commodities. Liguori's first act at Fox was to renew the ratings starved "Arrested Development" for another season. A gritty crime series, "The Inside" looks more like an FX show then a standard network series anyway, so it appeared that things where turning around.

But no, once again we've seen that it is "Arrested Development" and only "Arrested Development" that is given the benefit of network support. And Fox is back into it's usual habits, once again vehemently defending it's reputation as the most inept, intellectually bankrupt, short-sighted and audience-insulting network on the air today.

* * * / 4

I have found this on my must see list of shows for the week. It has a number of hooks that brings me back each week. The reference to Silence of the Lambs has definite merit. However, I have seen a number of other comparisons such as Coyote's vague similarity to Mark Harmon. But, I still go back to the show for it's own merit. I have hope that the show will survive and be on the coming season's lineup, or brought back in at mid-season. I think Locke has the ability to carry the character which she has demonstrated up to this point. She recently made the adjustment to become one of the crowd, and attempt to lose her standoffishness.

This series has just finished its UK run on ITV4, a minor satellite channel. I thought it was really good but, just as others have commented on the rotten support by Fox Network, the scheduling on ITV4 was also unhelpful. Halfway through the series, it got demoted from prime time to a graveyard slot post midnight. Still, we all have video timers . . . And the good news for UK viewers who missed an episode is that the series will be repeated from October. I wouldn't really compare The Inside to The Shield or CSI or Law & Order; those shows are similarly violent but less involving I think. The obvious comparison is with Criminal Minds - FBI specialist team, IT expert, damaged/socially inept team member, aspiring to high mindedness - but the scripts on Criminal Minds do tend towards an unpleasant didactic ism. Maybe that's why that show continues to run . .

Fox is, I gather, legendary for canceling shows. This one where all the episodes were not even sent is at present doing its second complete run over here, first TV3 and now TV6 – Sundays at 9 pm. Although the plots with a captured Rebecca Locke were a bit repetitive, they were nevertheless well executed and played with a peculiar somewhat alienated intensity by Ms. Nichols, who is not only beautiful but obviously has considerable acting potential, as she also showed in Alias. The rest of the cast were quite good also, and the show should have been given at least two full seasons to develop such things as the relationships within the group of investigators including their weird leader. For the series was developing, and the last episodes had a greater directness and also better scripting. The series might well have made better in the ratings had it been aired in the autumn, for example. As it is, one suspects Fox to have a very strange policy of producing shows they don't believe in and then doing their damnedest to ensure their non-success. It can't be a good business strategy.

You see, I'm a TV jinx. Any show I like, no matter what the network, is sure to be canceled abruptly with no explanation. I liked this show from the first episode, and after the second episode it went on "hiatus", and then was abruptly canceled. The same thing happened with "Nowhere Man" (FOX), "Now and Then" (CBS?), "John Doe" (FOX), "The Fugitive" (the remake series, I forget the network), and many, many other shows that I grew to like. I'll try not to let it happen again. Maybe I'll try liking really bad shows like "So You Think You Can Dance", or "Survivor" or any one of those other insipid reality shows. Maybe then the networks will cancel them and leave the good shows on the air. Only problem is, what will I watch then?