Veteran Fillion saves Rookie
John Nolan’s (Nathan Fillion, pictured) life is at a crossroads. The 40-year-old’s marriage is over and he has fallen out of love with his long-term, small-town career in construction. When someone suggests a trip to Disneyland might boost his spirits, he glumly responds that, ‘‘I’m not really feeling the Matterhorn at the moment, I’m just trying to remember to wear pants’’.
However, his direction becomes clearer when he gets caught up in a bank robbery, Nolan’s nervousness managing to distract the assailants long enough for the cops to arrive. Energised and excited, he decides to enrol in the police academy and nine months later he’s preparing for his first day at the Los Angeles Police Department.
However, hardly any of Nolan’s colleagues seem pleased to see him. Those with more experience see him as just another newbie to be hazed, while his bosses are either confused or outraged by his motives. Sergeant Wade
Grey (Richard T Jones) is particularly critical, lamenting that this man who was born before disco died will put his fellow officers at risk and, if successful, lead to more walking mid-life crises turning up on his doorstep.
Reteaming Fillion with his Castle showrunner
Alexi Hawley, The Rookie (which debuts on Three at 9pm on Monday, February 4) is a cookie-cutter, character-driven police procedural that’s only really redeemed by the charm of its leading man.
Clearly inspired by the recent success of shows like The Resident and 9-1-1, this offers the same combination of lifeand-death scenarios and complicated romantic entanglements. The workplace hierarchy on show is designed to create conflict and drama, while it seems certain that Nolan will regularly be barked at and asked to hand in his gun and/or badge.
But the opening episode certainly delivered on action and entertainment, as Nolan and his cohorts were initially assessed, and investigated domestic disturbances, a child locked in a car and an escaped felon. Expectations were occasionally nicely subverted, while the use of body and dashboard cameras introduced a point-of-view perspective that helped draw you into the story.
Unfortunately, there was more than one really clunky character revelation that will change the nature of the show going forward and The Rookie also appears to suffer from Resident’s obsession with characters being either virtuously good or maniacally bad.
But if you’re a fan of Fillion (and he has plenty of them) then your new weekly dose of appointment-viewing has arrived. – James Croot
The opening episode certainly delivered on action and entertainment . . .