National Post (National Edition)
Missing ingredient
The Good Cop emulates Monk, sans Shalhoub
When it comes to the recent history of television, Andy Breckman may not come to mind as quickly as more celebrated showrunners like David Chase, David Simon or Shawn Ryan, but he deserves his own footnote. Back when The Sopranos, The Wire and The Shield were definitively raising the game for original cable drama, Breckman’s creation Monk on USA — which premièred within months of The Wire and The Shield — was in there too, doing its bit for lighthearted cable dramedy.
Its star, Tony Shalhoub, was nominated for the leadcomedy-actor Emmy in each of its eight seasons, winning three times. And its finale set a record for the mostwatched episode of a scripted cable drama that stood until The Walking Dead.
Breckman’s formula was different. He updated Sherlock Holmes, creating a brilliant but socially awkward, obsessive-compulsive detective who assisted the police while milking comedy from the protagonist’s discomfort and prudish fussiness. It wasn’t a groundbreaking premise, and coincidentally or not, Breckman hadn’t worked in TV all that much since Monk ended in 2009.
But now he’s back, and Netflix has essentially let him re-create Monk, but in a version unlikely to please even the fondest devotees of that show. The Good Cop, whose 10-episode first season premièred Friday, is once again about a misfit detective who makes everyone around him uncomfortable but always solves the case. It once again surrounds him with an alternately supportive and disbelieving family of fellow crime-solvers and gives him a series-long mystery to chase involving a murdered female relative (mother this time, instead of wife).
So why does The Good Cop feel so much more dull, clunky and antiquated than Monk did? The obvious, and at least partly correct, answer is that some things that worked in 2009 no longer work in 2018. But the more immediate lesson is the difference one actor can make.
Josh Groban plays Tony Caruso Jr., the rules-obsessed New York police lieutenant at the centre of the new show, and his big-eyed earnestness probably seemed like a good match for the part. But every minute of The Good Cop serves as a retroactive demonstration of how Monk would have been nothing without Shalhoub and his marvellous expressiveness, timing and physicality (recognized this year with a Tony award for The Band’s Visit and an Emmy nomination for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel).
Groban works hard and hits his marks, and he’s likable, but he doesn’t have the comic chops needed to put across the show’s Borscht Belt-style humour, or anything like Shalhoub’s ability to relay emotion through movement (or excruciating stillness). Where Adrian Monk was childlike and eccentric but clearly a genius, Groban’s Tony Jr. often just seems dense.
It would be unfair, though, to put all the blame on Groban. As you’re watching The Good Cop you might find yourself re-imagining the scenes with Shalhoub playing all the parts: subbing for Tony Danza as Caruso Sr., the lovable but crooked ex-cop who’s moved back in with his son while he’s on parole, and for most of the supporting characters. (Though you’d keep Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Burl, a lazy sergeant counting the days to retirement.)
Most of the blame has to fall on Breckman. Shalhoub can no longer cover for the silliness and thinness of the plots or entertain us during the long gaps between when we solve the case and when the characters do. And he’s not there to provide an underpinning for the eunuch-like hero and to distract us from the show’s retrograde, teenage-boy’s perspective on sex and gender (mostly embodied in Danza’s character, a backslapping, merrily harassing Rat Pack leftover). Whether you’re prone to count such things or not, it’s noticeable that all 10 episodes were written by men.
And then there’s the biggest question: Why does Danza sing, but not Groban? Maybe it was Groban’s choice. But if Breckman is saving it for Season 2, he might have miscalculated.