I have been at a loss to describe my impressions of "Southland" for some time. I tracked it's progress from network misfit to it's new home on TNT and I'm still not sure whether it is good or just toying with excellence only to fall flat. It's the latest creation of John Wells and Christopher Chulack, producers of ER (not a particularly enticing piece of information to me). TNT isn't sure about it either and its future is once again in jeopardy after ratings were even lower for the second season than the first. However, as a self-proclaimed cop show junkie it is the best cop show on tv at the moment and it would be a shame to lose it before it's really had a chance to hit it's stride.
I don't know what attracted me to it first, but I actually tuned in to the series premiere last year. I think more than anything it was the title graphic, southLAnd over a map grid. I think I was just beginning to be fascinated by this concept of the sprawling metropolis that somehow makes up this disjointed and isolating city. Though I have been in the "LA area" since 2004, it's only after having graduated and leaving my suburban college town bubble that I have begin to get a sense of the "real LA." I don't even think I'd ever even heard the word "Southland" until my senior year of college when I began a bi-weekly trek from Claremont to Silverlake (a commute of approx 1.5 hours each way) for an internship. I remember hearing it used: "all over the Southland" on KPCC and thought how aptly that described this tangled mass of concrete. They were talking about the day's traffic.
One of the things I like most about "Southland" is this attempt to portray this isolation and the blinding brightness which seems to intensify this feeling by adding a surreal quality to life. Gritty and intense, "Southland" is no "CSI" or "NCIS" (and believe me I know my cop shows). There is no polish or glamour to the lives of these police officers. There is, however, a lot of drama. Here is where I began to have issues. When I try to describe the series to anyone it sounds like a soap opera... The serious and experienced cop, who is, by the way, addicted to pain killers and in the closet, puts the rookie, rich boy with issues through the paces. The alcoholic cop goes ballistic and crashes his police car in the LA river and it ends up all over YouTube. The young detective with a new baby girl admits to the young woman his parents raised as his sister that he is really her father. These stories sound ridiculous but I don't quite know how to explain why it doesn't seem that way when you are watching. The characters feel real, despite all the drama, not the typical cardboard cutout cops that we know so well. They just don't make that big of deal about things and they don't do lots of cheesy emotional wrap up montages featuring a currently popular song. Most of all, they don't spend time trying to make LA seem like this glamorous place where everyone and everything is beautiful. I hope TNT gives "Southland" another shot and let's the producers follow their impulses. With time and if it's allowed to continue in its initial direction it could mature into a critically acclaimed piece of television, but right now it's teetering on the edge of becoming just another sensationalistic cop show.
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