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A lot of predictable, humorless crime dramas have come and gone since James Rockford left us forty years ago. None have had its irreverent wit or had a smart, cynical, once-shady underdog who keeps getting beaten up for his troubles. Stumptown is Rockford reincarnated as a hard drinking, PTSD laden, gambling addicted, one night stand seeking, crash test proven, bisexual woman who finally finds her true calling as an aspiring private detective because she's broke. Just like Rockford's, her cases often turn out to be much more complicated and twisted than her clients let on, and require her to be able to withstand multiple punches and concussions. Oh, and there are wild, frequently necessary car chases, too. How could I forget to mention that?

All in all, this is not deep TV, but it is happily smarter than average and wry enough to keep me smirking. Glad to see Donal Logue coming on board, too, as he did the similarly worthwile and Rockfordesque series Terriers a few years ago on FX.

Glad to see that the Breaking Bad recipe for tense drama still works. I've felt that Better Call Saul divested itself of drugs, guns, money, and the constant specter of violence in favor of tensions between scheming lawyers, and it lost what made Breaking Bad must see TV. El Camino kept me on the edge of my couch wondering what would happen next to Jesse and his surviving friends and family, just like in the good old days when he and Mr. White were usually just one step away from being caught or murdered. I'd have given it a perfect rating, but it did lack a couple of things. There was very little comic relief, which Breaking Bad could often introduce with a strange camera angle or over the top characters like Tuco, his tio, or the twins. El Camino made me worry, but it didn't make me laugh. Secondly, there were almost no women anywhere. It may be that drug dealing and the violence that goes with organized crime are mostly the domain of men, but not exclusively so. A story without a major female character is always missing something. Lydia gave it that in BB, along with Skyler and her sister. There is no one like that here.

A good mystery that could give The Wire a run for its money on realism, intelligence, depth, ironic humor, and character credibility. Bingeworthy. The only thing I didn't like about it is that, although we follow a lot of characters and their complex connections to the main mysterious crime, this is a story about that one crime. So it's more like a mini-series than a renewable, multi-season show that could go on for as long as they keep coming up with story ideas.

What's truly wonderful are the scripts. It's so rare to find a show where the dialog seems like something real people would really say. There are no stereotypical, typecast characters here like "the good guy," "the hero private eye," "the hero's wife," or "the damsel in distress." There are no mindless, predictable car chases or CGI-augmented, but implausible action scenes. It's interesting because you believe all of the people involved can think and have choices, same as you or me. I watch because I want to know what they'll they're going to do next, or what they have done that's brought them into a mess. And from time to time the dialog is clever and funny.

I recognized a few faces in the cast like Deidre O'Connell, John Carroll Lynch from The Drew Carey Show, Greg Gerrman from Ally McBeal, and a couple of Boardwalk Empire veterans, Aleksa Palladino and Erik LaRay Harvey. There are no megastars. Everyone turned in good work, usually playing someone completely different from the roles that made them famous. Kirrilee Berger, literally a teenager playing a teenager (they're usually twenty-five year olds playing 18, right?), steals every scene she's in. She's magnetic, sympathetic,graceful, and convincing. I'm sure she's bound for great things.

There should be more TV like this. TV with brains and heart, that doesn't make us feel foolish for wasting our time on it. Like after finishing a good novel, I felt very satisfied when it ended. Hope to see the creator do something just as good soon!