"Southland" Review: I Want To Like It, But...

I want to like “Southland.” Really I do.

It stars Ben McKenzie, who I absolutely adore from his days on “The O.C.” and Regina King, who I still like no matter how stupid her character was on “24.” And it’s from John Wells, the executive producer of “ER.”

Honestly, there’s no reason not to—except for the fact that the pilot’s a total mess.

“Southland” follows the lives of cops, criminals, victims and their families in L.A. The premiere introduces us to Ben Sherman (McKenzie) a rookie cop on his first day on the job. He is, of course, being trained by a seasoned cop, John Cooper (Michael Cudlitz) who doesn’t miss an opportunity to give Sherman a hard time.

King is Detective Lydia Adams, a single woman who serves as her mother’s primary caregiver. Her partner, Detective Russell Clark (Tom Everett Scott), is, of course, unhappily married.

There’s also Detective Sal Salinger (Michael McGrady), Nate Moretta (Kevin Alejandro) and Sammy Bryant (Shawn Hatosy) from the gang unit and Chickie Brown (Arija Bareikis), a female patrol officer hoping to be the first woman accepted into SWAT.

But you honestly don’t learn much about any of them because the pilot is so jumbled, none of the stories make that much sense. Sherman’s story gets the most play, but it’s so clichéd you feel like you’ve already seen it. And when Cooper tells Sherman, “Once in a while you get to take a bad guy off the street for good. And that is God’s work,” I actually groaned out loud. I mean, seriously? Cudlitz deserves much better…

Honestly, the writers should have concentrated a little less on trying to insert curse words they could bleep and concentrate a little more on the words we actually hear…

The good news is that the last 15 minutes of the show actually show some promise as Cooper gets off his high horse a little and starts acting a bit like a human being.

The better news is that Ben McKenzie is fantastic. The show would do well to concentrate on him a little more.

As I’ve said many, many times, a TV pilot is a tricky thing to get right and “Southland” absolutely doesn’t. But I think there’s still promise there if it stops trying so hard to be gritty and just be good…

“Southland” premieres Thursday, April 9th at 10 p.m. on NBC…

Photo Credit: Mitchell Haaseth/NBC