(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.
