Monsters of Television

“Show us all why you’re the second best.”

The comparison I’m about to make probably wouldn’t have happened with the presence of Colin Hanks, but The Good Guys is essentially the premise of the parody/homage that was the 1987 Dragnet film with Hanks’ father, but with an ’80s cop stuck in the current decade (I think) with a straight-laced rookie who has to come to grips with said partner. Indeed, it’s pretty much every buddy cop story ever told just with an incredible mustache.

And normally I’d be all over it, but the pilot episode isn’t exactly great. It’s passable, yes, and there’s potential for improvement here, but I’m not too sure exactly where it intends to grow.

The basic set-up is this: Bradley Whitford’s Dan Stark was a big deal back in the 1980s, but has fallen into comic alcoholism, a pretty sizable gut, and an unwillingness to move beyond his former glory. Hanks is Jack Bailey, a bit of a know-it-all cop (he corrected his boss’s grammar in front of his boss’s boss). Between them, they work the routine cases (like looking for a stolen humidifier in the pilot), cases that should keep them away from mucking up major investigations.

Perhaps because it’s the pilot, the episode acts like Stark and Bailey just started as partners, despite the fact they’ve clearly been working together for a little while now, so there’s issues of trust building, including Bailey jumping out of a car onto another car, just like Stark’s original partner in the ’80s did (which resulted in that partner’s nervous breakdown). The tone between the two partners, as a result, feels disjointed in the way these types of characters shouldn’t. Sure, they perhaps shouldn’t like each other, but they never fall into a groove, even at the end.

Part of the issue is that the chemistry between the Whitford and Hanks never really takes off, and the script doesn’t seem interested in letting it. Indeed, Stark’s mentality is kind of amusing (he’s worried about computers rising up and taking over humanity), but the show doesn’t let Bailey comment on in this in the comedic way that it begs to be done. Equally problematic is that neither’s approach, Stark’s gut or Bailey’s by the book knowledge isn’t what helps them solve the case: it’s just happenstance that they end up getting involved.

A last glimmer of interest may be the gender politics at play. Both Stark and Bailey are answerable to women, an ADA who was involved with Bailey back in college, and their lieutenant, who used to be Stark’s partner. Whether or not the show is invested in showing these women as powerful figures remains to be see, or if they’re just there to be frustrated by the man-boys playing police detectives.

It’s a pilot though, and pilots should be graded on a curve since many things can change between that pilot and the following episode. Let’s hope things improve.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• Clearly Matt Nix likes the zippy chyrons, but I think they work better on Burn Notice than they do here.
• Having Andrew Divoff in your pilot episode does earn you a pass as that man can do no wrong. Ditto for Tom Amandes.