"There's no crisis situation they can't handle... unless it involves a network that cancels it." Thank you Fox! What in the world were they thinking when they green lighted this show? Okay, the idea must have looked good on paper- two good looking male and female FBI negotiators, a romantic involvement, an obligatory and ever complaining African-American female boss, a sniper with itchy fingers and so on
seriously??? I happened to see the pilot episode and by the end of it I knew that this show wouldn't survive but I didn't know that they actually made 18 episodes of it. Trust me, I like Ron Livingston and he was the reason I sat down to watch the show but what a letdown. I think the show was ruined mainly because of formulaic writing. It seems as if the producers specifically hired writers who couldn't hack in to Hollywood and allowed them to run their juices high while on a dose of Hollywood inspired clichés. I don't watch police procedural shows but I know this much that this was probably the worst produced show because one it was an exercise in style over substance and second everything about it was so predictable, case in point(s) – predictable romantic involvement and constant bantering, which involved several one liners, between the lead FBI negotiators; unnecessary stylish camera angles, pans and zooms; a boss that would pop up just at the right moment to remind her prodigies to focus more on work than on each other's rump. The list goes on: in the pilot episode, the senator and his wife are cardboard cutouts of a stereotypical image of what a senator and his wife should look like- well bred, educated white couple with well combed hair and dressed in crisp suits with a clearly visible 1 mm thick layer of makeup. Michael Cudlitz, who for some reason loves to play law enforcement officers in just about every movie and show, repeats the same routine that he did in the movie The Negotiator with a little more character development that, once again, borders on stereotype- a trigger happy member of the law enforcement. What a hoot! There is absolutely no sense of any kind of realism in the show. It stands out as something that was made for the sake of making a show for TV that would generate revenue and nothing more. The show could have been great only if they had some creative people behind it who, in all modesty, could have learned few things from the makers of CSI.
I give it 3 stars- one for the idea, one for casting Ron Livingston and one for canceling it.
