Blair Underwood (r.) and Pablo Schreiber in NBC's "Ironside"
Blair Underwood’s Detective Robert Ironside shares more than a name with the “Ironside” made famous by Raymond Burr more than 40 years ago.
He’s still smart, he’s still determined. Still uses a wheelchair.
But for those who remember Burr’s Ironside, mostly meaning viewers over 50, this revival is more like a brand-new ballgame.
For starters, he’s moved from San Francisco to New York.
More important, Underwood works at a faster pace and a markedly different attitude. He’s more tightly wound and seems to build a higher wall around himself.
This matters in his job and in his relationship with his girlfriend, who we meet both in the present and in flashbacks to his life before he was shot.
The girlfriend subplot has a prominent spot here, as does the lingering trauma to Ironside’s ex-partner Gary (Brent Sexton) over what happened.
We aren’t immediately sure how Ironside himself feels about things like that, which is a nice touch on the writers’ and Underwood’s part.
The new “Ironside” does not, however, lets psychodrama undermine its primary mission as a solid police procedural.
Ironside has a cop “family” of no-nonsense detective Virgil (Pablo Schreiber), undercover danger junkie Holly (Spencer Grammer) and rich boy Teddy (Neal Bledsoe).
His boss, Ed Rollins (Kenneth Choi), is just enough of an enabler to let Ironside and the team bend some rules where it could help.
This “Ironside” starts out as a good cop show that Underwood could turn into a very good one.
dhinckley@nydailynews.com
No comments:
Post a Comment