With The Shield, Nip/Tuck and Rescue Me, FX has had an incredibly impressive track record in coming up with groundbreaking, original and provocative dramas over the last few years. Like the basic-cable version of HBO, the network has become synonymous with well-written, thought-provoking drama that takes more risks and offers more rewards than network fare. Based on the first three episodes of its new series, Over There (FX, Wednesdays, 10 p.m.), the station's pride has become a little too taken with its own supposed brilliance.
Give the network credit for audacity: President and General Manager John Landgraf specifically enlisted legendary producer Steven Bochco (NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law) to create a series about the Iraq war, and no one at FX has been shy about playing up the unique angle of the show being the first to depict a war while it's still going on. If nothing else, the premise immediately grabs your attention.
The problem is that in rushing to bring out a drama with such a bold and controversial premise, FX has forgotten what made its other shows so good. The Shield, Nip/Tuck and Rescue Me don't have startlingly original or controversial premises; they're about cops, doctors and firefighters, respectively, long-time staples of prime-time TV. What makes them stand above other shows about cops, doctors and firefighters is the execution, not the concept. Creating real, well-rounded and flawed characters and infusing the storylines with layered drama makes for fascinating viewing. The unpredictability of the action on other FX dramas keeps viewers coming back week after week and keeps TV critics in rhapsodic glee.
Not so with Over There. Bochco and co-creator Chris Gerolmo—who is also head writer, the first episode's director, and writer and performer of the Springsteen-aping theme song—give us a cavalcade of war-movie stereotypes, including the gung-ho, all-American farm boy, the bespectacled intellectual, and the hardened street thug (played, of course, by a rapper), all with gimmicky nicknames that stand in for character development. The plots, while admirably avoiding political statements and positions either for or against the war, are largely predictable and familiar from decades of cinematic depictions of war. As the series goes on, the portrayal of the soldiers' families back home is set to increase, and that might add some much needed dramatic weight to the show. But for now, it's a striking concept with little follow-through, and as such, a big disappointment.
Last month, TNT's first new dramatic series in years, The Closer, made it seem as if the network had a chance at challenging FX in quality basic-cable dramas. Unfortunately, the latest addition to its lineup, Wanted (TNT, Sundays, 10 p.m.), slides right back into hackneyed, made-for-cable-movie territory, with its focus on an elite crime-fighting force (another one?) in LA. The dependable Gary Cole stars as the leader of an inter-agency task force charged with tracking down the city's 100 most wanted criminals. All the quick cuts and harsh language can't disguise the show's inherent pedestrian nature.
Since the team's job is to track criminals who've already been charged with crimes, there's none of the mystery aspects that come with most cop shows. They're never figuring out whodunit; they're just trying to figure out where that person is. Cole gets a few points for handling his character's clichéd back story—overworked father with no time for kids and an acerbic ex-wife—with dignity and style, but the casting of tattooed and pierced hard-rocker Josey Scott of Saliva as a surveillance expert tells you pretty much all you need to know about this show.