Dark Blue

Unconventional LAPD officer Lt. Carter Shaw (Dylan McDermott) leads an undercover unit employing questionable tactics. Ty Curtis (Omari Hardwick) is struggling to maintain both his work and his marriage to Melissa. Dean Bendis (Logan Marshall-Green) is on the edge of his dark side. Carter recruits Jaimie Allen (Nicki Aycox) into the team counting on her abilities to lie such as her new identity hiding from her criminal past. In the second season, they are joined by FBI agent Alex Rice (Tricia Helfer).

This show relies on a dark crime gangster sense in a police procedural. It's very manufactured at times. Luckily, McDermott has the intensity to pull it off. The gangster lowlife sensibility gets a bit tired. I like Nicki Aycox's storyline. However, the rest of it blends into one giant mishmash of tough guy bravado.

Just finished watching the season premiere of Dark Blue and decided to do a quick review over the show.

Dylan McDermott... Just isn't right for this role. Every other movie I've seen him in, he naturally plays the part, but in this... I don't like him. Something in the way he acts is different. This may be construed as a minor complaint, but if it's with the protagonist, it foretells of other evils to come.

Aycox wasn't seen enough in the pilot to really form an opinion over. I'm hoping for the best, but gearing up for the less-than-best.

The other two actors are really in their element, aside from the fact that this is basic cable. It seems to me that if the show had been on HBO, they'd be using systematic foul language and vulgar terms. But the censorship doesn't detract from the pilot as much as you'd think.

All in all, a decent show to watch. It's not as good as say, the original Law & Order, or the original CSI. But it's definitely better than all the crap TNT has been spewing out lately, such as Bones and Charmed.

Perhaps this series could develop into something more over time, with the actors fitting into their roles more comfortably (especially McDermott) and a certain style developing. But my prediction is that the strong first season will be epically ruined in the "shocking new season" which usually happens with modern TV shows. Do what I did with this series: Hope for the best, but expect somewhat worse.

internet haters crawl out of the woodwork on this one... wow, maybe they should watch more than 5 minutes of something before they write a comment....

most of the TV series that have been most engrossing for me have been tough to get in sync with, then after a couple of episodes, I save em on tivo and am a devoted fan for years... Dark Blue is one of these..

It's imperfect as most are, cramming a case per episode is a little contrary to the serious nature of the delivery and feels rushed for example... but everything else is spot on... the actors do themselves great credit with interesting and fresh delivery of a overdone genre...

Well shot, well acted, a better emotional hook than other TV crime shows.. can't wait to see it through.....

EDIT: Season 2 update....

With Season 2 well under way and the addition of Battlestar Galactica alumni Tricia Helfer, Dark Blue has really taken off. Season long subplot arcs have been added and it puts the show over the edge for a long run. It truly feels like a great show now...

When I first sat down to watch this show I was expecting another formulaic, "fast and loose with the rules but always just on the right side of the line" cop show. I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised.

Dark Blue is indeed refreshingly dark; the characters are predictably tortured souls with an interesting mix of personalities and histories that add to the depth of the plot lines, they are all superbly written and acted to the degree that sometimes the plot becomes something of a happenstance as we follow the personal journeys of the protagonists.

the plots themselves have all been seen before in numerous guises, but Dark Blue puts a new and slightly twisted slant on them that can fool you into thinking that you have never seen them before, but it is worth remembering that the case is not really the important thing here; it is what the case does to the characters that defines the show.

All in all, I would recommend this show to anyone who wants to watch a new and gritty take on a genre that has not yet been pushed to these limits.

This format works for other shows like NYPD Blue, CSI, Law & Order, etc. but I think it really limits a cop show about undercover police officers. Even more so because "Dark Blue" also promises to focus regularly on the characters' personal lives. I don't see how they can do this effectively if they rush through each and every episode. The pilot episode felt so rushed that I felt as if I could hardly keep up with what was happening. The Franzine character, who according to Detective Shaw was "a jack of all trades", could've easily lasted for several more episodes before being wiped out. The writing and the dialog seemed off! I hope the writers realize they can cover a lot more ground with story lines and characters by stretching things out a little.