Monsters of Television

“There are women that work around here that do not want their papers illuminated by nipples.”

“What the hell am I doing here?”

Have mercy, indeed.

Pilots are a tricky sort, what with having to establish characters and tone all within the same amount of time that, from then on, you can tell a cohesive story. It’s why pilots often lean on archetypes in order to get the ball rolling. This is the no-nonsense Mother Hen. This is the Damaged Yet Intuitive Detective. This is DJ Qualls. The point is to give people the basic equipment they need to inderstand the show and then throw in the curveballs when they’re on board.

The hope is that your marketing department doesn’t screw you.

The thing about this show is that it’s kind of like In the Heat of the Night except with Jason Lee and DJ Qualls, meaning they are similar in that they are cops and they are in the South. Jason Lee, whose most dramatic role to date is the skateboarding eccentric in Mumford and DJ Qualls, the guy who looks like he was touched by the Cocoon aliens a little too early in life (because he never grows old and he’ll never die) bring a certain stigma with them, especially when Jason Lee speaks in the same Southern drawl he used in his last series, My Name is Earl. They are comedic actors and TNT sold that to me by putting all the “funny” parts in the trailer, including parts where Lee is an Elvis impersonator. Lee and Qualls hijinks as cops in Memphis while Lee moonlights as Elvis in his off-time? Let the hilarity ensue!

So why am I not laughing?

What the trailer doesn’t tell you is that Dwight (Jason Lee) is a damaged, minorly deranged detective following in his passed daddy’s footsteps that lives and breathes Memphis. He’s not deranged in a quirky, funny way but more like a Southern Elliot Stabler Lite that, instead of child porn and rich kid date rape, gets upset about people violating the “sacred ground” that is his city. He’s an intuitive detective (read: doesn’t do things by the book) which often gets him in trouble with his new by-the-book boss. You might assume that she butts heads with him due to his rebellious nature but this is a “Southern” drama which means everything is as slow as a diphthong and concessions are made for people that feel their way through situations they probably shouldn’t.

Besides, after years of procedurals, the genre tends to skip the actual procedural stuff, like getting warrants and checking in back at the station, unless it produces some sort of revelation in the plot. Here, part of the character development is that Dwight doesn’t follow procedure. So when the chief comes down on him for not doing the things we’ve already assumed, it doesn’t land as well as it should.

The Elliot Stabler stuff comes in not from how he does the procedural stuff but how he interrogates the Bad Guy. He drags him up to the roof and threatens to push him off, telling him he’s violating Memphis with his evil deeds. Would you be threatened if Banky from Chasing Amy tipping you off a building, even if he had slicked back hair? No, of course not. I hate to say that Lee’s prior roles haunt this one but he’s a comedic actor with killer delivery and looks that convey funny. It’s hard for me to buy Lee as a hard-boiled cop.

Maybe that’s the point. It’s not that I’m bringing something to this show that ruins my viewing of it but that it’s not strong enough to change my mind. Another thing it wants to do is sell me on Memphis as a character, something Noel always talks about as an important piece of the Law & Order franchises. Granted, this show has only had one episode to establish that. But the importance of Memphis to Dwight is so core to his being, particularly in this episode where their created lore is at stake, and it feels like the writers have never even been there. Memphis is not alone in a lack of character development since the other people in the series are never expounded upon either but this is just a pilot so you can’t expect too much in that department (again, lean on archetypes and throw the curveballs later). The relationship Dwight has with Memphis, however, is deeply important to the premise. There is one scene where he says “morning, boys” to a line of Elvis impersonators sitting at the station. The show neded more of that, more flavor of the city, more of Dwight engaging this town instead of just telling me he loves it.

My Blues Name.

What they do demonstrate is that Dwight is a beloved figure that’s going through a hard time (a quckly-mentioned divorce that Jason Lee struggles to sell so they never go back to it) and people are giving him a little slack. He is King of the Peons and the chief, as much as she pushes back, will eventually learn to give him some space. “That’s All Right, Mama” (or, as it’s listed on TNT, “That’s Alright, Mama”) offers good angles this show can take but I feel like they aren’t using their resources as well as they could be. I’m hoping the comedic part of the show improves while the dark aspects gain some depth. I don’t necesarily think it needs to go one way or the other but the show is mediocre at best now and neither side of what they’re doing is impressive.

And if you’re curious about DJ Qualls’s performance, it’s about what you’d expect, except with an accent. He’ll be good comic relief when Dwight starts boozing at work in his Elvis costume.