TV Review: NYC 22 - Pilot 1.1

NYC 22 is the latest in the huge line of police procedural drama's to hit our screens, premiering on CBS Sunday 15th April 2012, thing with this police procedural it comes with a twist. NYC 22 is produced by Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal's Tribeca Productions, not only that but the show is written by Richard Price who wrote the movie Clockers produced by Spike Lee, it's one I've never seen but have read very impressive things about. On the face of things NYC 22 looks ok, I liked the "Pilot" and was hooked right from the intro with the 6 new rookies making their way for the first day at work to the beat of "New York Groove" before breaking into Jay-Z's "Heart Of The City (Ain't No Love)".

The "Pilot" was very procedural as you would expect but I still enjoyed it, NYC 22 is very bright very refreshing and this opener showed us a little promise as maybe something like The Wire, don't get to excited NYC 22 on face value is nowhere near as good as the Wire, at least that's what's "real" critics will tell you, I'm not a real critic nor did I enjoy The Wire all that much, probably due more to the fact that I was a few years to late catching on. For that reason and as a non critic I'll say that I enjoyed NYC 22 more, what can I say, this is the kind of show I like. NYC 22 has got legs I'm pretty sure on that and from what I've read it's a very mixed bag of reactions.

Ok, so NYC 22 is not Person of Interest which is my favourite show on TV right now, nor will the twists and turns be as good the characters probably won't be as deep either but I still think this looks like a good show, you can tell from the out-set that NYC 22 has had plenty money spent on it not only in production but also in recruiting it's potential stars. That's one thing you can say for Robert De Niro, he's not going to put his name to something which he doesn't think is any good and with NYC 22 he brings a certain essence of cool without doubt, that can be seen from the music in the beginning, that same beat of street rap rolls right through the episode probably due to the fact that the week's story was based on a potential gang war which eventually went off half way through the episode but was brought to a very uneventful conclusion.

The uneventful conclusion is probably because the show is based on the rookies and their experiences of life on the beat so, with that in mind let's roll through the characters first off Jennifer "White House" Perry (LeeLee Sobieski), a former US Marine MP who worked on security at the White House, Tonya Sanchez (Judy Marte) the daughter of a criminal family who has become a cop to clean up her family name and just happens to look very much like Jennifer Lopez, Ray Harper (Adam Goldberg) a former news journalist who lost his job after 14 years due to budget cuts, Kenny McLaren (Stark Sands) a 4th generation cop who was all but expected to become one himself, Ahmad Khan (Tom Reed) a refugee from Afghanistan who just wants fair play, Jayson "Jackpot" Toney (Harold House Moore) a former college basketball star who never quite met his potential and finally Daniel "Yoda" Dean (Terry Kinney) the boss in charge of all the newbies. 

I can't say I was disappointed with any of the performances, I've seen a few criticising Leelee Sobieski but hot blonde chicks sit fine with me no matter how wooden they look, anyway my eyes were drawn in the direction of Latino Lopez lookalike Judy Marte, what can I say I like dark hair. We found out enough about everyone here in order to move forward with what looks like it will be a weekly storyline as apposed to something that continues, what may continue is relationships between the rookies and their seniors and for me a few of the rookies are certainly open to corruption, you just have to look at their backgrounds. Although "Jackpot" did talk his best friend into handing himself into police and Tonya certainly seems committed to cleaning her family name, former journalist Harper is also very disgruntled towards newspapers. Maybe the most likely one to stray would be 4th generation cop McLaren, his eyes were certainly drawn to the sister of that little gangster, you know what some men would do for women.

In essence NYC 22 is no different really from all the other police procedural's we see on TV, although unlike say CSI (New York or Miami) I think NYC 22 may require more of your attention, you couldn't get away with just watching this every now and again. I really enjoyed it and I will be back for more. What are your thoughts on NYC 22? Will you be back for more like me? Or are you writing it off as just another police procedural?