Southland - The Best A Man Can Get.

Southland looks and acts like a ‘cable show’ which for a program that appears on a network alongside trash like Heroes and Crusoe that’s a pretty high compliment. Based on the pilot I would even go so far as to say that Southland is the best looking show on TV. I don’t know if the producers of The Unusuals knew that this director was out there working in television, but I hope not or else they just chose mediocrity on purpose.

Southland is the tale of cops in L.A. doing the hard yards and the tough things that cops in L.A. tend to do. Ryan from The OC plays a rookie. It’s his first day on the job and like Training Day and countless Training Day knock offs have taught us – that’s a tough assignment.

His isn’t the only story – we also follow a pair of detectives investigating a drive by and the drummer from That Thing You Do! And the wife from Jerry Maguire play another pair of detectives investigating a kidnapped child.

There were more characters on top of that, we’re inundated with eight or ten characters and it’s a little hard to keep track. Unlike with The Unusuals where the characters didn’t even seem to exist in the same universe let alone on the same show together, Southland creates one big living breathing organism where all the characters exist in the same world.

Our entry point into the series is obviously the rookie, but Regina King who usually just plays “Black Wife” in everything is great as detective Lydia Adams.

I don’t think I’ve seen a pilot this season that has surprised me more, and I don’t think there’s been a pilot this good this season let alone out of this midseason crop. If NBC really wants to crawl out of fourth place ordering smart adult well made dramas like this one are a step in the right direction.

Obviously shows like Dollhouse and Glee offer more in the long run, but based on the first episode alone Southland is stellar.

There are a couple of quibbles obviously – the beeps over the swearing were a little distracting, kind of like we were watching a live action South Park. There were a couple of dodgy lines of dialogue like “We’re fighting our own war of terror right here” to describe living in L.A. You could suggest that it’s not exactly covering ground we haven’t trod many times before, but really what counts as being new these days?

I don’t know how much louder I can say this but: check out Southland. It’s great.

Good, Average, Bad or Ugly?
Good.