Will Hart/NBCThe good news is that Blair Underwood is a beautiful man and you can tell he's having so much fun playing a badass cop. The bad news is that's basically the only thing we enjoyed about NBC's Ironside.
The new drama, which is actually reboot of the 1960's television series of the same name, fell flat for us. As much as we enjoyed watching Underwood as Robert Ironside and as much as we love to see Spencer Grammer back on TV (RIP, Greek), we're just afraid there isn't enough going on within the show to keep viewers engaged.
Ironside (NBC)
Premieres: Wednesday, Oct. 2 at 10 p.m.
Time-Slot Competition: Nashville (ABC), CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (CBS)
Cast: Blair Underwood, Brent Sexton, Pablo Schreiber, Spencer Grammer, Neal Bledsoe, Kenneth Choi
Status: We've seen the pilot episode.
It's hard to even understand why NBC would reboot this show in the first place. That's problem No. 1. Besides the fact that the main character is in a wheelchair, there is nothing very special about Ironside; it's another cop show in a sea of cop shows that are doing more interesting things.
Like we said before, Underwood's performance as the tough cop who is confined to a wheelchair after getting shot on the job is fine to watch, but he's doing too much talking and not enough ass-kicking for our liking. A little less talk, a little more action…please! It doesn't matter that he's in a wheelchair, because he always makes it very clear that he can still beat them up like the best of them.
The pilot episode acts like one entirely too long opening scene. If they took the information we get in the pilot and shrank it to a ten-minute opener, they'd have more time and room to actually get viewers invested in the characters and what they are doing.
Ironside tries to be "not just another cop procedural", but it actually is, and it's not as special as we wanted it to be. That being said, we love the cast, and when we interviewed them at the Summer TCA Press Tour (which you can watch below), they all seemed to really get along and like each other, which is important for onscreen chemistry. So if Ironside could take that energy and inject into the show stat, they could turn it around. Fingers crossed.
Verdict: Pass. CSI is the better procedural at 10 p.m., and Nashville is more entertaining at the moment.
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