Fox’s new drama series may need an ‘APB’
Show’s approach to crime comes off awful, depressing
APB isn’t so much awful as it is depressing. And awful. This new Fox drama is depressing because it arrives while cable and streaming outlets are in a golden era, offering new and exciting shows almost weekly, from Netflix’s Santa Clarita Diet last week to FX’s Legion Wednesday.
Yet too often the broadcast networks seem content to churn out tired, soul-crushing vapidities such as APB (Monday, 9 ET/PT,
out of four), a police drama that borrows its rich-man-tothe-rescue premise from CBS’ equally terrible Pure Genius, right down to its over-reliance on hightech toys.
Don’t get me wrong: This is not a plea to the broadcast networks to stop chasing mass, popular entertainment.
Every series can’t and shouldn’t be Atlanta, particularly as no broadcast series could survive with that small an audience. But as series such as ABC’s Grey’s
Anatomy, NBC’s This is Us and CBS’ late, lamented The Good
Wife prove, it is possible to be popular and still exhibit some semblance of artistic intent and intelligence.
If you must be insipid, don’t be insipid while plunging into troubled social waters — for example, crime in Chicago.
That’s where we are in APB, as brilliant but obnoxious tech billionaire Gideon Reeves (Justin Kirk) witnesses the murder of his best friend and decides to do something about it.
His plan: to take over a Chicago police district and turn it into a showcase for modern crime fighting, from super flak jackets and stun guns to the show’s main gimmick, an app that allows people to contact 911 and share crime video.
Oh, so that’s what APB thinks is the root cause of crime in our cities. Not police abuse or ignoring poor neighborhoods. Not bad schools or bad parenting. Not drugs, guns, race or class. Just a scarcity of apps, drones and souped-up motorcycles. Good to know.
Naturally, Gideon faces some opposition, from the corrupt mayor and his cronies to most of the cops. He finds an ally in Theresa Murphy (Natalie Martinez), a beat cop who becomes his friend and mentor.
Do you need to be told that Gideon will ignore Theresa’s advice and fail, only to heed it later and succeed? Of course you don’t.
There’s another central problem with APB.
Look past the flashy gizmos, and it’s the same old story TV has told a thousand times, with the same plot holes sloppily covered over by coincidence and computer hacks.
Nor does it help that much of what Gideon learns from Theresa (such as the carelessness of bad guys in car chases) is so obvious, his obliviousness makes him seem like a buffoon.
In a testament to his talent, Kirk manages to make Gideon slightly less punchable than Augustus Prew’s similar character on the canceled Pure Genius, but that’s a very low bar.
What he can’t do is make the character even momentarily believable or provide any reason to watch a series that seems to have been created from spare parts for a network that has to know better.
And that really is awful.