Kat with a K

Rookie Blue 1.2: "Mercury Retrograde"

I'm trying not to hold it against Rookie Blue that it was renewed while The Bridge, a far superior Toronto cop show, was cancelled, but it's hard. I'll keep trying after the jump.

In these first two episode, the show has not done a very good job of letting us get to know the rookies other than Andy and, to some extent, Tracy. Peck is almost completely unlikeable here, and the guys are barely there at all. (The names on the shirts are helpful, though! Note to other shows: If you're going to fail to make us care about your characters, give them jobs with personalized uniforms so we can at least tell them apart.) How many of these kids are legacy? Maybe just Andy and Peck. Hmm. Are either of the guys? Do we know them enough to even know? Still, even if it's just two out of the five, 40% seems like a lot. But maybe that's realistic. I honestly have no idea.

I really like Sam, the formerly undercover guy. He and Andy work well together, even given their "follow the rules or not" tension, and I was hoping the show would work on their friendship and professional relationship without jumping right into a romantic thing, but I suppose I can get on board with that as well. It seems like we're headed for some sort of triangle with them and the pretty blond detective, who I barely remembered from the pilot. Everyone wants Andy! Of course.

Oh, yeah, the plot: I had trouble following some of the plotlines, but honestly, I might just have not been paying enough attention. I do like that they're showing the consequences of Andy's outing of Sam. It's good that that didn't just go away. And I am completely confused as to why, when presented with a flash drive, everyone immediately says "Oh, it's encrypted! There's no way we can possibly get the data!" without seeming to even check. And you'd think they'd have tech people (or consultants) who could work on decrypting things, anyway.

Rookie Blue 1.1: "Fresh Paint"

(N.B.: I'm going to up the daily post count for a bit in order to catch up on some TV reviews and book reviews and other posts I've had simmering for a while. Not sure how long this will be sustained, so don't get too attached to the new schedule. We'll see how it goes. Remember: A post with an episode name in the title may contain spoilers for anything up to and including that episode.)

I didn't expect much from Rookie Blue. In fact, what I expected was almost exactly what I got: a watered-down Grey's Anatomy, except set in Toronto (not that you'd really know that from the pilot), and about cops. It wasn't good, but it was . . . watchable. I think. I like my cop shows to focus on relationships, which this one does. For now. Missy Peregrym's Andy McNally was winsome, and who doesn't like a nice dose of Having to Prove Oneself with a side of Fraught Family History? She's no Meredith Grey, but she'll do. I saw the Traci-has-a-kid storyline coming from a mile away, but there's a chance they'll do something interesting with it, I suppose. The other three rookies haven't made much of an impression on me either way yet. Some of the reluctant mentoring relationships could be interesting, or just get boring. Detective Callaghan is pretty. Whatever. I'll give it a few more episodes.