'Southland' season 2 review: andreikirilenkotattoo on TV

In today's column, I review the new season of "Southland", about which my feelings are unchanged from midway through the show's brief first season: the stuff with the two uniform cops in the car is pretty good, and if the show was just that, it would be fine, but the rest doesn't really work.

Firewall & Iceberg podcast, episode 5: Parenthood, American Idol, Lost and more

It's Wednesday, so time for another episode of the Firewall & Iceberg podcast. The post at NJ.com has the full rundown of topics by time so you can avoid spoilers and/or shows you don't care about.

More technical issues this week than last, I'm afraid (karma for us getting cocky, I think), and there's still a specific roadblock to getting on the iTunes store that we have to work on. But stream/download away.

A bad day to be a drama fan?

While ABC was busy picking up three shows that had aired for a few weeks, NBC was canceling a show that had yet to make its season premiere. "Southland" was due to be back on the schedule two weeks from Friday; instead, production has been shut down and producer John Wells will try (and, given the pricetag, likely fail) to shop it elsewhere. More thoughts after the jump...

Outside of the weird harmonic convergence that has the season's first two big casualties (this and "The Beautiful Life") starring Ben McKenzie and Mischa Barton (will no one think of the second-hand sales of my book?), this move is kind of startling. I've seen new shows get canceled before they aired (Fox had a good run of this around the turn of the century), and I've seen shows be renewed and then canceled a few weeks into their second season ("Dollhouse" seems a candidate for that treatment), but for a show to be renewed and then never air? That's bizarre, and maybe disturbing in what it says about the current state of NBC.

One of Nikki Finke's moles at NBC said the network would have "nothing watchable for the rest of the year" (he or she clearly isn't a "Chuck" fan) and said the place is still a disaster area post-Ben Silverman. Neither "Trauma" nor "Mercy" have gotten any traction, "Parenthood" is still trying to recast Maura Tierney (though Lauren Graham, the current reported frontrunner, at least seems a good match on the President/elf/terrorist scale), and the only show that's really working at all is "Biggest Loser."

Make fun of NBC all you want - God knows I have - but even in the midst of this downward spiral, they've put some of the best shows on the air, and found unlikely ways to keep them on the air. "30 Rock" is going into its fourth season. "Friday Night Lights" will produce at least five season's worth of episodes. "Chuck" got renewed. Etc. I'm not saying "Southland" was remotely in a league with any of those shows, but it was still the type of show - reasonably pricey scripted drama with a good cast and name producers - that it was good to see NBC doing in the midst of its budget-slashing and Leno-scheduling. For them to pull the plug on it before airing even one second season episode suggests a network in full-on retreat. And that's very, very bad for the business in general.

Southland, "Mozambique": It's my baby in a box!

Quick spoilers for the second episode of "Southland" coming up just as soon as my goats clear some brush...

Last week, I favored the pilot of "The Unusuals" over "Southland." This week, the roles are reversed, not because "Southland" was appreciably better than last week but because "The Unusuals" was worse. Whatever issues I have with John Wells' non-"ER" shows (and certain periods of "ER," as well), there's a kind of baseline consistency to them, not just on the technical front (where his people are always the best in the business), but in terms of the kinds of stories, the amount of time devoted to character, the work of the cast, etc.

I don't feel a lot of affection for "Southland" yet -- in part because the characters are still so thinly-sketched that the only name I can remember is Ben, for obvious reasons, in part because so far most of the story beats have played out fairly predictably (the teenage girl witness being attacked, for instance). But I do like the slice-of-life, Joseph Wambaugh-esque take on work in the LAPD. In particular, I think it confronts the precarious nature of most cop marriages more bluntly than any other show of its type in recent memory (most notably when the middle-aged cop's daughter caught him kissing his mistress and was pleased about it), and the emotional toll it takes on people like C. Thomas Howell's character(*).

(*) Can anyone identify what late '80s/early '90s Howell film the photo of him at the retirement racket came from? Clearly, it wasn't "Soul Man."

I'm glad that they're continuing to focus largely on Ben McKenzie and Regina King (with a generous sprinkling of Michael Cudlitz, who carries himself like a veteran cop -- or, at least, like the veteran of lots of cop shows and movies that he is). King's the best actor in the cast, and while McKenzie is more or less playing his character from "The O.C." so far (Fienberg likes to call this show "Ryan Atwood: Year One," in homage to this), it's a part he plays well, and Wells and company showed on "ER" how valuable the wide-eyed rookie character can be early on in this kind of setting.

It has potential, anyway. Then again, so did "Third Watch," and aside from an occasional episode (notably right after 9/11), that never achieved its potential.

What did everybody else think?

Southland, "Unknown Trouble": Welcome to the PD! This is how it's done in LA County!

I had my say on "Southland" in yesterday's column, so I'm curious for your thoughts on the Ryan/Oliver "O.C." reunion, the language (bleeped or unbleeped), whether or not you think Brenda Walsh's prom date should be cracking "90210" jokes, and anything else you have to say about it. (Fire away about "The Unusuals," too, if you didn't already in yesterday's post.)

'The Unusuals' & 'Southland' review - andreikirilenkotattoo on TV

In today's column, I review the two new cop dramas on the block: ABC's "The Unusuals" and NBC's "Southland":

There are plenty of dramas on television about cops, but precious few about being a cop.

The "CSI"s and "Law & Order"s and the rest are driven largely by plot. It's been a while since we've had a drama specifically about the culture behind the badge -- so, in typical TV fashion, we get two at once: ABC's "The Unusuals" and NBC's "Southland."

You can read my full review of "The Unusuals" and "Southland" here. Both shows have certain things that are interesting about them, but if I had to pick one to recommend, it'd be "The Unusuals," for reasons I go into in the column.

But because of the Passover holiday(*), I won't have time to do a separate "Unusuals" pilot post for tonight, so feel free to discuss it here. I likely won't have any more time to do a separate "Southland" post, either, but since it's airing tomorrow night, I'll at least get some kind of open discussion post ready to go for when it's over.

(*) While we're on the subject of the Night That Is Different From All Other Nights -- which, btw, gave us the ever-popular Dayeenu rule -- chances are I won't be getting around to "Lost" and/or "Life" until sometime tomorrow morning at the earliest, and my Thursday viewing may be even more disrupted. Sorry.