Line of Fire

Paige Van Doren (Leslie Bibb) and Todd Stevens (Jeffrey D. Sams) are FBI trainees in Quantico. They get assigned to the Richmond office headed by Lisa Cohen (Leslie Hope). Roy Ravelle (Anson Mount) is undercover in the local mob run by Jonah Malloy (David Paymer). Donovan Stubbin is the top lieutenant who vouched for Roy. Agent Sampson is struggling to balance family and work. The show opens with Agent Sommers and bookie Charlie killing each other during a foot chase. Sommers' partner Amiel Macarthur arrives late to the scene.

I really like this police drama. I especially like the back and forth between cops and criminals. It has the sensibility of a The Departed. Maybe a more compelling opening killing could stretch out the investigation for the whole first season. The show does lose me in episode eight. It's way too convenient to have Sampson's daughter taken hostage. It may be more reasonable if Sampson isn't right there. It doesn't help that the girl gets shot two episodes later and almost dies. They really have it out for that girl. The show needs to pick one story or the other. They can't have both. The last episode feels a bit orphaned like something that could be stuck into the schedule at any time. All in all, I love this show. I also understand its problem as a pre-binge show. There is too much serial element to be just a regular network cop procedural.

When this show came on it blew my mind. It was dark, gritty, and at first better even than 24. David Paymer was a classic cold-blooded villain and Leslie Hope was great against type of her 24 character, nail-tough.

In one episode, everything changed. It was when the FBI was pursuing a criminal pregnant woman, who ultimately abandoned her newborn in a dumpster. The baby was found alive and well and the episode had a warm, happy ending. No, I am no sadist who enjoys the sight of dead babies, but the whole point of a series like this is to show us what we do not want to see, along the lines of Saving Private Ryan.

With each successive episode it lost its edge, the fate of so many good shows. In less than a season, really half a season, it went on the journey NYPD Blue took over the course of a decade, throwing in curse words and partial nudity to appear gritty, but really becoming all too soft. I loved the show, then I was glad to see it canceled.

"Line of Fire" is a real quality TV show about the FBI department in Richmont. The characters are very realistic and the cast is spot-on! The viewers get a look into the "everyday" life of normal federal agents, but also a very good sense of the life for an FBI agent who is deep undercover. It is a show that not only depicts the work lives of the agents, but also their private lives and how difficult it can be to keep those two things separate. I would like to give an example of another show in order to compare the two, but I cannot think of another show that comes even remotely close to this on! There are a lot of TV shows about different law enforcement agencies, however this one is one of the best and most gripping. It had me glued to the TV. The only thing keeping me from giving it 10 out of 10 is that there is only one season, which is a huge let-down when you get "addicted" to a show. However, I cannot blame the network for canceling the show if the audience were not big enough. I just have to wonder what else the viewers could want in a show...

Now that February sweeps are upon us, it appears that "Line of Fire" has been put on the injured reserve list for awhile if not banished from the airways permanently. It's too bad, because its 9th episode, (broadcast on on Feb. 3) "The Senator," is the best in the series so far, in my opinion. All three of the major story lines were compelling, and it's nice to see Jonah be a part owner of a minor league baseball team. I guess good things happen to those that are bent on revenge, I guess. Maybe he will be the George Steinbrenner of the bush leagues. I don't know if it's coincidence or what, but another factor that made this episode so good was the near or complete absence of the show's most annoying characters: chain-smoker Lisa, mother-to-the-world-Paige, puncher of the heavy bag Jennifer, and the one FBI dude who's always mad about everything. Hopefully, we'll see a new and improved version of this show in the future.

I don't know what to really say about this show. I loved the adds for it, and I'm a sucker for gangster movies and the like. I never would have pictured David Paymer as a mob boss, but he does a fine job. I felt like--and this is just after watching one episode--the mob syndicate aspect of the show has yet to fully develop its characters into three-dimensional people, unlike the FBI, who seem much more real so far. I really hope this doesn't become a kind of cops-and-robbers thing, following two opposite sides, yet always making you want the "good guys" to win, and bring down the "bad guys."

I would have never figured Richmond, Virginia for the setting of a long, drawn-out mob sting operation, but I like the idea for a change. Rather than the cold streets of New York or Chicago, or flashy environs of, say, Miami, they put a bunch of syndicate crooks in one-time capital of the Confederate States.

So far, while in pursuit of a low-level mob affiliate, an FBI agent exchanges shots with the crook and both are killed, right in front of the agent's partner. A young widow has just graduated Quantico, all in an effort to eventually make it to anti-terrorism and avenge the death of her husband in the Pentagon of 9-11. She's about to fill the shoes left behind by the afore-mentioned dead agent. Two agents inform a petty crack dealer his life may be in danger because of a tape taken from four days prior, when Malloy (Paymer) interrogated a man, beating him savagely with a lead pipe, learned he worked for the crack dealer, "Crazy Jazz," dealing drugs to Malloy's nephew, Jimmy. (The scene is probably the reason there's a "Viewer Discretion Advised" on this show.) Later on, newly recruited ex-con Roy, in a mad dash, shoots Crazy Jazz, threatens his buddy, and kills an innocent bystander, much to the chagrin of Malloy, and his lieutenant, Donovan Stubbin, who stood by as his friend went nuts. But apparently Roy is actually undercover, and it was all just a way of getting the dealer into Witness Protection.

The show definitely has potential, but only time (and ratings) can tell.