2.96- LINE OF FIRE/ NYPD 2069

PILOT review: LINE OF FIRE

by David Blackwell

I watched LINE OF FIRE two months ago and it is a show that just stays with you. LINE OF FIRE is a show about the FBI's attempts to bring down the Malloy Crime Syndicate that is based out of Richmond, Virgina. The FBI Special Task Force is headed by FBI Agent Lisa Cohen (Leslie Hope). In the beginning of the pilot, she loses one of her agents to someone working for Malloy. The pilot follow three stories that eventually converge. one of the plot lines focus on a rookie agent (Van Doren) in her final days of training and her overeagerness to go to work when she become an agent. Agent Van Doren (Leslie Bibb) had her husband murdered and she decided to become an FBI agent to stop people like the ones who took away her husband. In another plot line, we are introduced to malloy and the people who work in his organization.

I really liked the characters in this show. The plot is interesting and I will turn into watch future episodes. LINE OF FIRE is one of those gems that need an audience to find it, and stick with the show. The pilot I watched had no music and no music brought a harsh gritty realism to the show (but I suspect they just didn't add the music yet).

Malloy is brutal and the first scene we see him in proves it as he tells one of his people to break the hands of a baseball player with a sledge hammer (as the guy is tied to a tree). I like most of the characters in this show whether it is a good guy or bad guy. Many (people who have watched the WB) will recognize Leslie Bibb from POPULAR. Another moment in this pilot is when Van doren shows up for work a week early and told to not come back for a week by Agent Cohen, but yet Van Doren disobeys and decides to look up stuff on the agent she is replacing (the guy that gets killed at the beginning). I hope NYPD BLUE fans do check out this show because this show is better than NYPD BLUE (no offense to NYPD BLUE fans because I do watch NYPD BLUE too). LINE OF FIRE hits the ground running and introduces you to the main characters while telling you something about each and every one.

LINE OF FIRE premieres December 2, 2003 at 10/9 pm on ABC stations in the USA.

PILOT review: NYPD 2069

by David Blackwell

NYPD detective Alex Franco is brain-dead after an "accident" arranged by wife-murderer Harlan Kroger. Taken off life support, his heart continues beating, and he is cryogenically frozen for the next 66 years. Awakened in the year 2069, to find his wife dead, his son an aging vegetable, and his grandson a cop, Franco pleads for the right to do what he does best: police work. Secretly hoping to bust the 99 year old Kroger, he adjusts to the complex world of the future, and learns that being a detective is easy in 2069 - as long as you like working in a police state. (synopsis from http://imdb.com )

The problem with NYPD 2069 is that isn't very good or very bad. It's very average. It may have an interesting look at 2069 and how the world is, and some interesting technology. Ultimately the pilot fails due to the script which isn't fleshed out enough. It would have been done better as a two hour pilot. Also the police investigations are glossed over. Althought, the show is about a 2003 cop working in 2069 as a cop, I wish they didn't kill off his grandson (who is a cop) so soon because there is just no connection. I would have loved to see the grandson around for several episodes as he figures who this new detective is before he ends up dead.

The police state in NYPD 2069 raise many interesting ideas for plots like how did it get to this point, are there people trying to overthrow the police state, and will there be people who are trying to change the law. NYPD 2069 has many interesting ideas, but I would have loved to have connected with the characters and none of them I quite connected with. All of the futuristic police tech is great like the eyepiece data displays, the robot spider that goes down into the sewers, and the weapons, and the look of the future isn't bad (no flying cars). The pilot feels more like a 50 minute presentation reel than a proper pilot. If NYPD 2069 made it to series, I suspect it would have lasted for 6 to 13 episodes.

OTHER RANTS- I watched the L.A. CONFIDENTIAL pilot back in September, and the show got better as it went on and I wish they filmed it as a two hour pilot once I reached the end of the hour which closes with the words- "To Be Continued". Kiether Sutherland gives a magnificent job as Jack Vincenes and the pilot (for the show that never was comissioned by CBS) shows the start of the events that would lead up to the L.A. CONFIDENTIAL movie (and novel which both are based on).

If CBS did put the show on the air, I wonder if it would have lasted more than half a season and would 24 be different if L.A. CONFIDENTIAL; took off. I love Keither Sutherland as Jack Bauer on 24. Season 3 may not be as gripping as teh first two seasons, but the first two seasons of 24 are a gripping action thriller. Yet, I was introduced to the British series MI-5 (known in the UK as SPOOKS), and MI-5 just blows 24 out of the water. I wish 24 was less melodrama and was more realistic like some of the real-world plots in MI-5.

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