The Unusuals

The Unusuals caught my eye last night, and I was desperate for some decent TV fare (all I currently watch is The Office and Intervention, well, okayand The Millionaire Matchmaker, but I am just plain humiliated to admit that). I loved it immediately and then read the bad reviews after a search on the web. I was dumbfounded! Maybe the original media reviews were for the premiere episode, and I have seen only the last 2 episodes, episodes 3 and 4. This show is funny and smart and sad and real and crazy. My gosh, you've got how many millions of people watching Real Housewives or that hospital show based in Seattle where the impossibly attractive, and thus vapid, characters hang around posing like they are in an MTV video, and The Unusuals gets bad reviews? This show seems to have found the soul that Boomtown was searching for, and it doesn't take itself too seriously, which was Boomtown's downfall. Network TV--give me a reason to tune in, with shows like The Unusuals!

....That makes you want to find the executive (-s) responsible and slap them upside the head with a frozen tuna.

Seriously, this is one of the best cop shows made ever. Right out of the gate, you've got a show stuffed with well-written and well-rounded characters, absurd humor, sensitively written drama, tense action, and several subplots deserving of exploration.

Let's talk about the casting. Even at the time, when so many of these names and faces would go on to even more amazing roles, this was an amazing cast. Amber Tamblyn, Jeremy Renner, Harold Perrineau, Adam Goldberg, Terry Kinney, Monique Curnen. Even the guest stars: Miles Teller, Corey Stoll, Joanna Gleason (a national treasure btw), Chris Sarandon (same). And we can't forget the voice of the show, Marisa Vural as "Dispatch." There was so much talent here, it's almost criminal. (Har har har.)

Next we have the series writers, which included: Sarah Watson (whose credits include About a Boy, Parenthood, Pure Genius, and That's So Raven), Danny Zucker (The Arsenio Hall Show, Evening Shade, Roseanne, Grace Under Fire, Modern Family), Melissa Byer (Stargate: Atlantis, Crossing Jordan, Reaper, CSI, The Gifted), Robert De Laurentiis (St. Elsewhere, Providence, The O. C., The Umbrella Academy, Fargo). And let's not forget the series creator, Noah Hawley who wrote for Bones, Legion, and Fargo, while producing and directing episodes of the same (among other series). I mean, the man has won an Emmy, a Golden Globe, a Peabody Award, he's a novelist, screenwriter, series creator, showrunner, director, and producer. He's accurately named an auteur.

So with so much goodness wrapped around a show like this, why the hell was it cancelled? Well, it had disappointing numbers, ones that started out low and dropped even further as the weeks went on. Yet shows such as The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, All in the Family, M*A*S*H, Family Ties, Cheers, Seinfeld, and Homicide were the same and I think we know how they turned out. So, then, ultimately, why was The Unusuals cancelled? Was it cop show burnout? Was it insufficient advertising? Was it impatience with a more complex storyline and characters? I'm thinking all of the above, along with the standard issue of executive ignorance and - the worst possible reason - bad luck. So many shows succeeded when they should've failed because they dropped at the right time and caught the right audience. So many other shows failed when they should've succeeded because of the opposite - they never found their footing or the audience, advertiser, and executive support. Sadly, The Unusuals fell into this last category, joining a far too long list of other "Cancelled Too Soon" shows. But a show totally worthy of rewatching, if only to enjoy what was and mourn what could've been.

I like cop shows, which was one of the reasons I was drawn to this show. This is well-written, well directed, well acted show. It is mainly a drama with humor sprinkled throughout it. It manages to keep the viewer intrigued without the intense violence or graphic nature of most of the other popular crime shows we see today. I love cast of characters they have chosen. I turn each week to watch this show because I truly am drawn back to the storyline and the characters. I certainly don't tune in because ABC has advertised; since they don't. This is good show and it deserves a real chance to succeed. If you haven't watched this show, tune in and give it a chance. It is well worth the time spent watching it.

I discovered and bought ''The Unusuals'' DVD on Amazon a few days ago (10 October 2012, too late, unfortunately) because I (and my family!) am an absolute fan of Jeremy Renner (really great, charming, extraordinary, irresistible, deep and intense actor) and of Amber Tamblyn (also great, delightful and brilliant actress). I already watched the whole series twice in a week! Definitely, ''The Unusuals'' is one of my favorite series in my life (I am 48)! An outstanding casting (Renner, Tamblyn, Perrineau, Goldberg, Curnen, Lennox, Close, Kinney and so on, the performance of each actor and actress is always so right, perfect, natural); a fantastic mixture of drama, comedy, romanticism; a gripping, original, amusing, touching and dynamic script!!! So, I wonder WHY the series stopped????? It's a crime!!!!! I know that my complaint (sorry for my bad English) is probably just a message in a bottle in the ocean but PLEASE, I BEG YOU, at least make a FILM (with the same casting, of course...)!!! Do not let us down...

Having watched everything from LAW AND ORDER to NYPD BLUE, I have a pretty good idea by now how police procedural shows work. You get a sense of the personalities of the main characters while they solve a boatload of cases week after week, but since the shows are mostly about the cases and not about the characters, nuggets of information about the heroes' quirks, family lives and other intimate details are about as rare as actually finding a real cherry in a Hostess Cherry Fruit Pie. And then they're doled out maybe one or two every fifth or sixth episode.

Which is why THE UNUSUALS is so darn refreshing. Like a fighter who actually leads with his chin, this series wears its characters odd qualities on its sleeve. And what gets doled out just like those aforementioned cherries, are bits and pieces of a puzzle underneath all the weirdness: the real secrets these characters are hiding underneath the "WTF" moments.

I never watched a single episode of JOAN OF ARCADIA, but I was immediately intrigued with Amber Tamblyn, who plays Det. Casey Shraeger. What makes her "unusual": she's a trust- fund baby from a VERY wealthy blue-blood background, who has been working in Vice "on the stroll" for two years, when she's plucked off the streets from her hooker gig and teamed up with stoic Det. Jason Walsh, played by Jeremy Renner. (You may remember Renner as the heroic and doomed soldier from 28 WEEKS LATER.) Two of the things that make him "unusual": off-duty, he runs a hole-in-the-wall diner where he cooks and serves dishes you could never imagine yourself wanting to eat, and he has been covering for his corrupt partner, who suddenly ends up looking like a slab of beef in a slaughterhouse. Since said partner was also into hookers, hence his sudden, reluctant partnership with Shraeger.

In an inspired bit of casting, two of the most watchable "unusuals" seem to have the most conventional secrets in any cop show going this far over-the-top: Adam Goldberg (SAVING PRIVATE RYAN) and Harold Perrineau (LOST, OZ) play partnered Detectives Leo Banks and Eric Delahoy, respectively. Banks wears a bulletproof vest both on and off-duty (he's terrified that he will die at age 42), where Delahoy suddenly becomes a suicidal "super-cop", who isn't afraid to do anything that might get him killed (he has a brain tumor and has been given mere months to live, if he doesn't get the operation he's determined to avoid.)

Riding herd on these and several other off-beat personalities constantly clashing in the precinct is Sgt. Harvey Brown (OZ alum Terry Kinney), who has pulled Tamblyn's seemingly squeaky-clean character in for a very specific reason: to help him clean house. Not surprisingly enough, there are several cops in their shop who are on the take and worse, and he wants to expose and take them down before his superiors are motivated to do it for him. "Nothing is what it looks like," he warns her - or something to that effect.

If the show has any problems, which are definitely not with the strong ensemble cast, it's some of the cases piled on top of everything else to heighten the weirdness. No explanation is given as to why a perp is brought in wearing a hot dog suit, or why their caseloads include everything from a serial killer of neighborhood cats, to a dangerous gang that goes on a rampage which includes virtually every male member of the family, down to the youngest brother who is an honor student in high school (so why weren't the aunts, the mother and the grandmother in on it, too?)

The goings-on with the main characters would be more than enough to keep things interesting without any more embellishments, but in a blasted landscape littered with the corpses of shows long past their prime, being fed on by the fly-blown vultures of reality TV constructs, at least THE UNUSUALS is trying by daring to be...unusual. And it's for that reason I fear that this show will be over before it even gets the chance to find its feet and its potential audience.

But I really hope I'm wrong.