Caso resuelto

An outstanding drama that dances on the edge of being a formula cop show and a soap opera. Brenda Lee Johnson is an outstanding interrogator with a background of being difficult to work with but achieving great results. However, her personal life is a mess. She is hired from Atlanta to head LAPD's Priority Crimes Unit for those high profile crimes that need a resolution and need it quickly. Tensions arise immediately. Her brusque style makes her own people want to transfer away, her boss is a former lover who dumped her and she manages to make many more enemies than friends. The crimes are formula enough that you can probably figure out whodunit before you get to the climax but it's the characters and relationships that sell the show and make it worth watching. Not only is Kyra Sedgwick giving the performance of her life in this series but she has a terrific supporting cast that gives the series heart. The ability of the writers to also give us some great comic lines keeps the show teetering at times from comedy to drama. The first season is already out on DVD. Watch it from the first episode to the last, in order, and you can see why this show has become the most watched show in basic cable history.

I didn't see the first episode of this series, but from the first time I watched it I could tell it would be one of my favorite shows. And I wasn't disappointed. There are so many things I love about this show, but most of all it is hilarious to watch the characters interact with each other. Kyra Sedgwick excellently portrays a tough woman who won't let people walk all over her. People complain that Brenda is a b****, but maybe that's the point. What fun would it be to watch a show with nothing but sweetness and joy between the main characters, no conflict whatsoever? The tension she endures and often causes just makes the show all the more entertaining.

What is most irritating, however, is to hear people complain about how the perpetrators in each show is obvious. Anybody who had listened what TNT had been saying about the show before it premiered would know that they said from the beginning that this show would be unlike other crime dramas in that the crime would not be the main focus. This show is ABOUT Brenda Johnson.

So, in conclusion, this is an excellent, intelligent, amusing show, and I am sad to see the season end.

After watching every episode of "The Closer" up to the current one (final episode Sept. 2007), I feel it's time for me to commend every aspect of this series about an elite homicide squad.

Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson (Kyra Segdewick) is consistently one of the most engaging television series characters I've seen in a very long time. She's the star but certainly not alone in delivering quite engaging, excellent characterization, and entertaining performances.

This series goes to show that today's television doesn't have to depict violence, gore, profanity, or much that older children couldn't watch. Yet, for an adult who likes Cronenberg's and Lynch's films, this clean cut show is quite interesting without being too 'vanilla'.

Sedgewick has really come into her character by this third season and I like it far better than "24" which has now become monotonously predictable. There's no guessing what Deputy Chief Johnson will do to protect and close one of her cases!

Sure, this could fall into the category with the other Law and Orders and CSI's but something about this show really stands out probably because its aired on TNT and you'd expect there to be some cheesy movie of the week quality about it. Like Law and Order the show puts more focus on the cases themselves rather than the personal lives of the characters, but The Closer opens the door a little more. Kyra is really what draws in people to this show, it's something about her character's charm despite the fact the character is from the often ridiculed south. The writers were also keen to make Brenda Johnson a real person, not some super-hero who always wins and always knows the every move of the bad guy; sometimes Brenda makes mistakes and pays for them and sometimes she is insecure about her looks or being freshly relocated to the big city of Los Angelos. The show just started this summer and I wish it the best of luck, I hope it can become as acclaimed as all the other crime dramas we've got on the airwaves today

And as a professional woman, why was I surprised by the nasty comments about the lead character? One poster missed the point entirely when he wrote that all of the detectives working for her submitted their resignations after the first meeting because she was a real bitch. They submitted their requests for transfer BEFORE EVEN MEETING HER. Under the circumstances, her behavior was pretty restrained. How I wish I could think up some of the responses she comes up with -- and had the guts to utter them!

And what's with the comments on her clothing? If Sipowicz had shown up, would you have questioned his credibility as a leader because he doesn't look like he walked off the pages of GQ? Few men in my workplace look like they spend a lot of time thinking about their wardrobe (to their credit, imo); why do you hold women to such a ridiculous standard?

I love the junk food theme. When was the last time you saw a fresh green salad in a police department? Oh to be starving and to see only donuts (forbidden food) lying around!

She's human -- a little bedraggled sometimes, a little neurotic about what she eats, not a paragon of organization... why can't you find that likable? If she were the stereotypical cold blue-suited automaton you seem to expect, you'd hate her even more, wouldn't you?

Wait... maybe all you hostile posters are just constructing an elaborate parody of how some men treat professional women. My bad; you're brilliant!