Once upon a time there used to be a fall premiere season on broadcast networks where many new, innovative procedurals would get launched. Once upon a time there used to be a whole buncha viewers that actually cared and wanted to sample them. And once upon a time there used to be a media trade industry that actually thought it was truly newsworthy.
These days, much of that narrative is as outdated as an IPod. But as long as there’s NBC and as long as there’s THE VOICE, rest assured that at least some such opportunity and expermentation will still exist. For 30 “seasons” over 16 years the competition franchise–especially the two-hour Monday night staple that still more than effectively counterprograms football–has teed up a relatively large and reasonably young-skewing audience for something the network felt was promising enough to merit such a plum time slot. When prompted, our friend Copilot offers that literally dozens of different shows–mostly original hour dramas–have been deemed so worthy. I personally worked on three, including the very successful BLACKLIST and the ambitious TIMELESS.
This year’s chosen one is LINE OF FIRE, which actually is neither a franchise extension nor something from the world of Dick Wolf–which pretty much defines the rest of NBCU’s output. As procedurals go, it’s got a rather unique premise–a successful family where pretty much everyone is employed by a different branch of government law enforcement. Represented by husband, wife and three adult children are the FBI, U.S. Marshals, Secret Service, and Department of Justice. That gives the producers a pretty robust palette of potential topics to paint from.
In the care of a showrunner like Joshua Safran that palette portends to be anything but bland. He’s got a pretty diverse CV ranging from both the beloved OG and lamented attempted reboot of GOSSIP GIRL to the critically acclaimed and internationally successful QUANTICO which despite the investment of a ton of promotion and high salaries couldn’t find any domestic traction on ABC and all but drove their historic Sunday night procedural strategy into the ground on its own. Safran doesn’t fit the profile of a typical law enforcement procedural czar, and LINE OF FIRE is anything but your typical example of one.
For one thing, the family dynamic weaves both through work and home–which is a rarity in this genre to begin with. But unlike, say, BLUE BLOODS–one of my admitted guilty pleasures and a dead giveaway that I’m not a millennial–the Hollingsworth family has more skeletons in their closet than comfort food that the Reagans featured at their Sunday dinner. Patriarch Peter Krause–whom I came to love on the quirky SIX FEET UNDER–and matriarch Hope Davis are ideally cast as the pilot describes “people who care far more about complete strangers than their own flesh and blood”. And that description comes from their two sons and daughter who still have each others’ backs even in the midst of some of those skeletons emerging when the daughter–played admirably by the intriguing Kat Cumming–brings a boyfriend into a world he clearly wasn’t prepared for.
And after viewing the pilot which served as the series premiere Monday night it’s clear to see why this tested so strongly that NBC went ahead with it. It not only successfully sets up the whole “Family Law and Order” premise with enough use of detailed graphics to satisfy even the most distracted but it delivers a twist at the end that had scribes buzzing and “spoiler alert” stories flying all over the internet yesterday. Among the more complimentary was US’
The…series…introduc(ed) Mike (Krause) and Jane’s (Davis) family, including Clare (Kat Cunning), Micah (Tommy O’Brien) and Russ (Taylor Bloom). Jack (Charlie Barnett) – Mike’s son from his first marriage – was mentioned as having died years prior… In the last scene of the premiere, the audience learned that Jack was alive and well – and hiding in plain sight without his family knowing. His intentions remained unclear after he killed someone who was spying on his family. “That is the overarching mystery of the season. Is it him? Is he alive? What is he doing? Who is murdering federal agents? And is he involved?” Davis, 62, teased exclusively to Us. “That’s something that is going to play out through the entire season – and we don’t know the answers to all those questions yet.”
THE WRAP’s Jose Alejandro Bastidas spilled still more tea:
Safran always knew the show’s pilot would end with a shocking reveal: The Hollingsworth family is being targeted by a trained assassin, and he happens to be one of their own…Jane (Hope Davis) and Mike Hollingworth (Peter Krause) realized his son from another marriage is the suspect who just killed a man at their home. They opt to keep that information to themselves for now. “When I pitched this iteration of the show that became ‘Line of Fire,’ [the twist] was baked into the premise immediately,” Safran told TheWrap. “There’s a lot more to the role than what you see in the pilot … not everything is what it appears to be.”
Sounds juicy, to be sure. Certainly seems like those plot points would appeal to fans of a show filled with conflict between aspiring singers and their over-the-top celebrity coaches. And it sure as heck ain’t yet another version of NCIS, its time slot competition.
Then again, I’ve done enough post-mortem work in this space to know first-hand that hard-core procedural fans actually like the homogenaity and predictability of the genre–as much as the pot roast and meat loaf than Tom Selleck and his multigenerational law enforcement fam served up for no less than 14 seasons. Sure, to the oldest-skewing audience of any scripted program anywhere. But more than enough of them showed up to make it worth CBS’ and Paramount’s while.
Once upon a time, at this writing we’d already have a couple of articles crowing about the premiere night ratings for something as ambitious and theoretically crucial as a show like LINE OF FIRE. As we compose this–crickets. But having lived through TIMELESS and competively obsessing over such ballyhooed yet ratings-hemmoraging efforts like LA BREA, BRILLIANT MINDS and BLINDSPOT (kudos if you recall that one!) I’m not holding my breath over anything qualifying as breaking news. Besides, NBC was far more excited this past spring when they announced what will likely get THE VOICE lead-out’s time slot this winter: the reimagining of their pre-existing IP, THE ROCKFORD FILES. Something that has a built-in library to monetize via Peacock and a title immediately recognizable to gold card–and golden-age–procedural lovers.
For those reasons alone, I’m hoping LINE OF FIRE bucks the trend and perhaps at least emerges with the level of modest success that, say, HEROES or NEW AMSTERDAM achieved. Enough episodes to give Peacock an asset and enough traction to assure an audience will continue to discover it down the line. And a decent enough performance to at some point warrant a ratings story. I kinda miss those once upon a time days.
Until next time…