That’s the theory posited by a commenter on New York’s Vulture entertainment blog:
Southland looks like it’s going to be a crappy network version of The Wire. Which is to say everything that the greatest cop show ever did will be dumbed down and made painstakingly obvious for a broad audience.
Which is to say it’s the best thing on NBC in years, but still won’t be any good. Every time an expletive was bleeped in the pilot, it just reminded me of how sh—y network television has become. I can’t wait for Southland’s take on The Wire’s “Fuck” scene in Season One — it will just be a continuous bleep.
Now, I have to say there’s a lot of merit to this. I watched the Southland pilot on Hulu last weekend and couldn’t help feeling I’d seen it somewhere before, but grittier and better. Then again, my time in Los Angeles was mostly spent west of Sepulveda Blvd., so my knowledge of South Central comes strictly from Boyz in the Hood and one ridiculously ill-navigated trip to Dodger Stadium.
Southland appears to be an early ratings success for NBC, if last night’s market shares are to be believed in the age of TiVo, DVR and Surf the Channel. But I wouldn’t get too attached to it just yet. This is NBC – they can fuck up anything.
Also, what’s up with the littering on the Southland set? Going green, my ass!
i liked it. it had all the proper stereotypes. white people are stupid. black women are the smartest people evar.
You thought the film was negative towards white people??? 95% of the white characters were cops. The main character is a white cop. WHAT?
and plus a tv show about cops has to be compared to the “greatest cop show” ever? its set in a different city. and it follows officers and detectives but is mainly about a rookie on the beat. if anything it is trying to be the shield with all the different camera movement and everything. imo
I’m not sure the Wire comparison is apt, either. The Wire very quickly established that it would be an open exploration of two sides of the War on Drugs – the Barksdale family got as much time as the Police department did – and not long after that, other sides of the story from City Hall, to the dockworkers, to the supply side abroad, started to open up. Southland seems like it’ll only follow the cops’ side of things; there’s more of a po-po bildungsroman setup, the pretty boy discovering the ‘policeman that is within him,’ or however his partner put it. The only bit of similarity, it seems, is the general sense of disillusion that ended the episode.