Thursday 8 December 2005

Did we like it?

We’re not surprised that Fox in America has already axed this drama about the Deviant Crime Unit in San Francisco which was created by Josh Berman of CSI fame. With twisted killers, graphic spookiness and a handsome cop, it should have been a lot less ordinary than this.

What was good about it?

• The pilot episode crime – Nasty Professor (a bitter divorcé with nasty eyes) kills women using funnel web spiders – was an intriguing idea, but it failed to shock as much as it should have.

• Johnny Messner, who plays central character Detective Jack Hale, has marvellous muscles, tasty tattoos and the sort of deep voice that sends rumbles through the walls like a stereo on full volume when a Tom Waits album is being played.

• The theme song – Marilyn Manson’s cover of Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This).

• The trolley cars.

• The trap door in the ceiling which unleashed a rainstorm of bugs

• The only bit of dramatic tension in the whole episode when Nasty Professor got his pet spider to poison Pretty Student and then refused to reveal which vial contained the anti-venom. Hale made him talk though, by getting a spider to bite Nasty Professor as well.

What was bad about it?

• The boring characters. Hale’s boss and sidekick (played by Chi McBride and Marguerite Moreau) are characterless and there was a desperate attempt to play up Hale’s back story – his partner and lover was shot dead and he’s just returned from leave of absence. He also received a ripped up photograph of him in bed, with “I’m watching you” scrawled on the back – but this was left unexplored, adding to the uninspired feeling that pervaded this pilot episode.

• The huge spiders performed brilliantly, creeping up on sleeping ladies and sinking in their fangs (do spiders have fangs? we should watch more BBC wildlife shows, shouldn’t we?). Pity that the web of intrigue they span was gossamer thin.

• The gratuitous – and largely unsuccessful – attempts to be really scary.

• The boring weather – fog, rain.