'Terriers,' an
old dog with new tricks
FX private eye dramedy mines all the old cliches
By Tom Conroy
Sep 7, 2010
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A recovering-alcoholic former cop is scrambling to make a living as a private investigator after losing both his job and his wife because of his drinking. But he’s still in touch with his old partner on the force, who sometimes helps him solve cases, and he spends way too much time with his ex, especially considering that he’s still pining for her and hoping they’ll get back together.
Even though FX’s new comedy-drama “Terriers” uses all of those hackneyed plot elements, the show is surprisingly enjoyable, thanks largely to low-key but engaging performances by its star and supporting cast. The scripts, while unlikely to win prizes for originality, contain enough twists to keep an audience interested, if not necessarily hooked.
Premiering Wednesday, Sept. 8, at 10 p.m., “Terriers” stars Donal Logue (“Grounded for Life”) as Hank Dolworth, who works in the San Diego area as an unlicensed PI. His partner is a former crook named Britt Pollack (Michael Raymond-James), who’s slightly more ineffectual than Hank. They take on jobs like chasing down criminals who have jumped bail or helping a woman kidnap her dog from her ex’s house.
In the first episode, an old colleague of Hank’s asks him to find his missing daughter. The case leads them to — again, stop me if you’ve heard this before — a wealthy and well-connected real estate developer whose latest deal involves a web of intrigue and possible corruption that may reach to the highest levels of business and government.
That story arc extends through the five episodes that FX made available for review. Its familiarity is redeemed by a few surprises and by the show’s general light touch.
Though Logue convincingly portrays a man weighed down by regrets, his character tends to undercut the seriousness with a joke. As in most post-“Pulp Fiction” crime dramas, Hank and Britt tend to talk in incongruous inanities during the quieter moments.
At one point during a stakeout, Britt gets angry with Hank for throwing out his “pee bottle.” (This being cable, the characters utter many of the seven words you didn’t use to be able to say on TV.) Sometimes, what seem to be throwaway lines in one episode turn out to have a payoff in a later one.
While very much an anti-hero, Logue has enough physical presence to make it credible when he has to confront a tough guy.
The show suffers from the common Hollywood assumption that small-time crooks are generally good-hearted bumblers while rich people are sociopaths who will coldly order a murder in order to protect their profit margin. At the end of the fifth episode, viewers might find themselves thinking, “It’s ‘Chinatown.’ ”
Fortunately, that downer note is atypical of “Terriers.” Viewers who are willing to cut the show a little slack will grow fond of the characters and will be diverted by the plots. The show is at least worth sampling until the broadcast networks start airing new 10 p.m. dramas in two weeks.
|
|
|
