jcoffee02

London Kills is a pleasant way to spend an hour if you're a crime TV fan. These criminals aren't masterminds; most of the murders involve the victim getting bonked on the head with a trophy or tire jack. The step-by-step progress of the investigations are incremental and formulaic with red herrings scattered about. The usual murder-of-the-week stuff.

The program is actually quite sloppy with ongoing themes that run season-to-season, larger criminal threads that keep viewers coming back for more. A character's missing wife is found, then goes missing again as the series has no further use for her. Also in the first season, much is made of a victim found hanging in a tree. It was never revealed why the killer(s) went to all that trouble.

Other reviewers have pointed out that 95% of the action takes place in one dark office and an interrogation room, suggesting a very tight budget. They do a good job with what they've got, but the repetition does become glaring.

Best thing about the series is the cast, especially the two female leads. Sharon Small's performance is pitch perfect, creating a no-nonsense investigator who seems very realistic, never resorting to overplaying her role. And Tori-Allen Martin brightens every scene as a rookie who empathizes with the civilians more than she probably should. She's the heart of the show.

The two male leads? Hobbled by the writing and limited to taciturn caricatures, though it's plain they're capable of much more.

One more thing: the Did You Know item suggests that the show was very improv, but I believe that was intended for Paul Maruess' other series, Suspects, which packed a lot more energy into the stories than LK. Great series, but it doesn't look like it's coming back.

Speaking of energy, Season 4 of London threatened to become a snooze fest, with humdrum stories not up to previous seasons' quality. Not helping was the score, a murmuring wash of keyboards & percussion that isn't really music, just something to fill in the lulls, of which there are many. Seems to be trend these days.

Which isn't saying much. Unfortunately, Season 1 was a hard act to follow, I'll admit. But requiring 8 hours for a season when you've only got 4 hours of story is not a formula for success. Call it noir-ish, call it moody...I call it slow. Tedious, even. The dialogue was flat. All the twinkling lights in the L. A. night skyline couldn't put any sparkle into this limp blimp. They even threw in an irritating daughter, a love interest and several talkative baddies, but it still wasn't enough to stretch this story over 8 episodes. This particular episode contributed nothing to advancing the story, but it was like being stuck at a creepy party with no ride home, but in a good way. Good to see Savage & Bauer again, but the whole gang was a gaggle of great characters improvising better lines than the writers could conjure. Thank you one and all for making this season almost worth watching.

The Taylor Sheridan fan boys are out in force with 10+ ratings, and that's to be expected. After all, these are the guys TS writes & produces his myriad series for. They want a maverick main character (or, in the case of Lioness, a female with stereotypical male qualities) who single-handedly battles the nabobs who oppress him, surrounded by a bunch of good-old-boy sycophants who thinks he walks on water.

Apparently, the male viewers like to bask in this fantasy and vicariously pump up their own miserable self-esteem. Throw in some ball-busting babes in scanty attire to bring the guys back to earth and humble them even as they drool, and you've pushed most of the buttons the uncritical viewer requires to enjoy an hour of what is essentially a soap opera.

Sorry to bust your bubble, fellas, but you go ahead and have fun. Sheridan can crank this stuff out in his sleep as he dreams of streams of dollars flowing his way, content in knowing there's a TS fan born every minute.