So much of FOX’s “Backstrom” is so broadly clichéd that I
half-wonder if it’s not a parody. Half of my notes were variations on “Are we
supposed to take this seriously?” Setting aside Rainn Wilson’s bizarre low
octave and overcooked title character for a minute—we’ll get to that—even the
whodunnits in this mystery-of-the-week series have an odd smell of anachronism.
The producers of the ‘80s mystery series on which I was raised—which, young readers,
was not exactly the gold standard of realism—would offer notes on these scripts
about things like logic, cliché, and other elements that leave this weird show
stuck between reality and reality TV. These aren’t characters—they’re mouth
pieces for writers who think they’re clever. And, again, the settings for the
mysteries, whether they’re the hunky, shirtless firefighters of episode two or
the boarding school bad girls of episode three, feel like parody.
The talented Hart Hanson (“Bones”) creates and executive
produces the show based on a series of books by Swedish criminologist and
novelist Leif G.W. Persson. Wilson plays the title character, Everett
Backstrom, a hard-living, sexist misanthrope, who happens to be a damn good
detective. He’s returned to the newly created Special Crimes Unit after five
years in the traffic division for being too much of a Cop On the Edge.
Backstrom hates everyone, and the general theme of the show is that his
distrust and dislike for the human race is what elevates his detective skills.
He’s haunted, complex, and too determined to be distracted by things like actual
human connection. He’s also a walking cliché, the kind of character we put in a
trunk years ago for a good reason. When he makes sexist jokes or plants evidence,
it’s not really funny anymore. It’s just annoying. Wilson drops his voice down
to Dark Knight levels, scowls, and slumps his shoulders to represent
world-weariness. I really like Wilson in general, but he just doesn’t work
here. There are some “tough guy monologues” in episode three that are
embarrassingly bad. The overall sin is that Hanson and Wilson forget to shade
this anti-hero in ways that would soften his misanthropy or even prove its
worth in his profession. He’s just a jerk. I’m too busy to spend time every
week with a jerk.
The supporting cast does have a few highlights. Dennis
Haysbert works (as he nearly always does) as the lone voice of reason in
Backstrom’s life, and Kristoffer Polaha proves that he should get a better show
(he worked on “Life Unexpected” too) as the most charismatic member of the SCU.
Honestly, most of the supporting cast is pretty solid, except for the miscast
Genevieve Angelson as Backstrom’s superior. This is one of those shows where
one starts to feel bad for the ensemble, as they trudge through bad scripts,
doing all they can to elevate it but sinking into the generic quicksand as Wilson over-acts his way into cancellation.
Backstrom’s schtick as a detective is to look at a suspect
and say “I’m you,” before going on a monologue about what happened in the case,
will happen, etc. The problem with FOX’s misfire is that no one would even want
to spend time with Backstrom, much less be him.
