FX unveiled their new series The Bridge tonight and although it’s never fair to judge a serialized drama on the basis of its pilot episode alone, I feel ambivalent about this show already. It’s really too early to tell if it’ll deliver or not, but two big things gave me pause in the pilot episode.
One, FX is one of the absolute best networks around, and the idea that they’re just going to have (basically) a generic police procedural show where a cop is (basically) just chasing a serial killer makes me uncomfortable. It’s like watching Tiger Woods play mini-golf. FX can probably nail a standard cop show———The Shield is my personal pick for the all-time best police procedural, although that label is a little misleading and it’s arguable whether it really was or not————but I think half the fun of their shows is delving into a brand new, never explored world (The Americans, Sons of Anarchy). They already have Justified, and AMC is delivering slow-burn, season long procedurals with The Killing and the upcoming Low Winter Sun, so maybe this show just isn’t special enough?
Two, Diane Kruger’s performance as the lead El Paso detective investigating a body found on a bridge between Mexico and the United States. Her character has Asperger’s Syndrome (finally, an excuse for her wooden acting) but that doesn’t explain her less than convincing accent, and Hugh Dancy handled this affliction vastly better on Hannibal. He found ways to draw you into a potentially alienating character whereas Kruger’s detective doesn’t exactly captivate and it doesn’t help that literally every other character on the show keeps commenting on how weird she is.
What do I like about the show so far? Demian Birchir’s scruffily charming Mexican cop, who’s like a small screen version of Benicio Del Toro’s wearily honest cop from the movie Traffic. He doesn’t participate in the corruption around him, but understands it fully. All of the best scenes in this episode were set in Mexico and spoken entirely in Spanish. They illustrated the casual, sliding scale of corruption that has led to so many Juarez girls disappearing and nobody properly investigating. The end of the episode hints that the killer may have political motives for his crimes, which should be interesting in the weeks ahead. If The Bridge can explore the politics of the situation it has a real shot at transcending the genre. Grade for pilot: B