{"id":181261,"date":"2023-01-09T04:20:07","date_gmt":"2023-01-09T04:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/an-inept-fox-procedural-the-hollywood-reporter\/"},"modified":"2023-01-09T04:20:07","modified_gmt":"2023-01-09T04:20:07","slug":"an-inept-fox-procedural-the-hollywood-reporter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/an-inept-fox-procedural-the-hollywood-reporter\/","title":{"rendered":"An Inept Fox Procedural \u2013 The Hollywood Reporter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\tWhen charting the course of a procedural hybrid \u2014 those tricky shows in which a case of the week and a bigger, ongoing narrative arc go hand-in-hand \u2014 it’s helpful to be able to point to a show like Paramount+’s Evil<\/em> (or CBS’ old Person of Interest<\/em>if that’s more your flavor) as an example of how to do it right. <\/p>\n

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\tEach standalone plot has to be satisfying, while the bigger storyline has to be advanced. Ideally, neither undermines the momentum of the other and, even more ideally, themes in one will inform and enhance those in the other.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tAlert: Missing Persons Unit\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/span>
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\tYou’re better off missing this one.
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\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAirdate: <\/strong>Special airing 8 pm Sunday, January 8; regular premiere 9 pm Monday, January 9 (Fox)
Cast: <\/strong>Scott Caan, Dania Ramirez, Ryan Broussard, Adeola Role
Creators: <\/strong>John EisendrathJamie Fox
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\tPerhaps it’s equally helpful to be able to point to a show that illustrates time and time again how to do a hybrid procedural poorly \u2014 a cautionary template.<\/p>\n

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\tCredit to Fox, then, for the altruism of releasing Alert: Missing Persons Unit<\/em>. The new drama isn’t offensive or necessarily outrageous in its badness. I’m not angry at it. It’s just inept, and were it not for the presence of Jamie Foxx as co-creator, I have a hard time imagining the show ever would have made it to air.<\/p>\n

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\tCo-created by John Eisendrath, an alias<\/em> and The Blacklist <\/em>veteran who very much knows what a good version of this sort of show looks like, alert<\/em> stars Scott Caan as Jason, a Philly police officer turned military mercenary whose son was abducted during Jason’s last tenure in Afghanistan. He’s sad. His wife Nikki (Dania Ramirez) is sad. Six years later, Nikki is working as part of Philadelphia’s Missing Persons Unit.<\/p>\n

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\tNikki establishes the lay of the land for Jason, who’s one of those pesky TV husbands who just refuses to sign those darned divorce papers.<\/p>\n

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\t\u201cWe have been separated for three years. I have been with Mike for two, OK? You and June run a private security service. You have been to at least three fertility clinics trying to have a baby,\u201d she says, apropos of basically nothing.<\/p>\n

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\tIt should be noted: When this line is uttered, Mike (Ryan Brussard) hasn’t appeared yet, June (Bre Blair) hasn’t appeared and will not appear in the pilot (though she’s in the second episode), and Jason has not been seen doing anything in private security. In fact, he isn’t seen doing a single bit of private security work in either episode sent to critics. She’s just telling Jason things he already knows in case the audience happens to be listening. It’s one of several steaming piles of exposition bogging down the first 43 minutes of this show.<\/p>\n

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\tBut don’t worry about that last part of Nikki’s exposition dump being irrelevant. Jason and his trips to the fertility clinic are extremely important to alert<\/em>. In fact, the thing that alert<\/em> is best at is grinding the momentum of a missing persons investigation to a halt for absurd conversations about sperm motility and whether or not men can fake orgasms.<\/p>\n

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\tJason and Nikki’s son has been gone for six years, but suddenly, right in the middle of the different child abduction case at the center of the pilot, they get information suggesting that Keith (their son) might still be alive. Jason is initially hopeful. Nikki, who has poured her energies into a career helping other people find their kids, initially refuses to be similarly optimistic. That doesn’t stop them from getting on a plane, flying to Las Vegas, bursting down the door of a hotel room and flying back to Philadelphia in what appears to be an afternoon \u2014 all right in the middle of the case of the week, even though the Philly MPU department appears to be five people. <\/p>\n

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\tThis is just a hint for writers: If your case of the week is going to have a ticking clock \u2014 and it inconsistently does here \u2014 but the characters entrusted with pursuing the case feel so little urgency about it that they’re willing to set it aside for a temporally unrealistic piece of personal travel, there is no chance that viewers will think that there are stakes. Doesn’t do much for the characters and their judgment, either.<\/p>\n

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\tNeither episode I’ve seen had a case of the week \u2014 there’s a missing girl who was jeopardized by her father’s job and then a kidnapped drug dealer \u2014 interesting enough for even minor investment, so it’s maybe fitting that the show’s treatment of the MPU is equally flimsy. The team includes Mike \u2014 yes, Nikki’s aforementioned boyfriend Mike \u2014 who proposes in the middle of the missing persons precinct, mid-workday; \u201cC\u201d (Petey Gibson), who proves technical acumen by photoshopping a kitten onto a picture of Jason’s head; and, most annoying of all, Kemi (Adeola Role). It’s not Role’s fault at all, but Kemi is constantly going through the offices doing purifying ceremonies and rambling about famous men she slept with, and her skillset is \u201cwhatever random thing moves the case to the next scene.\u201d <\/p>\n

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\tIt’s such an unrealistic and unprofessional workplace that I almost didn’t bat an eye when, in the first episode, Jason wanders into an interrogation room and starts questioning a suspect despite having nothing to do with the case and no professional capacity with the department \u2014 and, despite that rather clear breach of ethics, Nikki is hiring him one episode later.<\/p>\n

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\tSo it’s two episodes with barely-there cases and then the ongoing storyline with Jason and Nikki’s missing son, who isn’t so missing at all. Or is he?!? It’s very hard to care. The splintered family also features a teenage daughter played by atypical<\/em> favorite Fivel Stewart, forced to regress back to high school here after getting to play a grownup in Netflix’s recent The Recruit<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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\tAll this could probably be mitigated if alert<\/em> had any visual flair, but the first episode has one incoherent fight scene in an elevator and a risible sequence in which Nikki jumps off a balcony and into a pool and then opens fire on a suspect because, you know, that’s what cops do. The second episode is wholly forgettable.<\/p>\n

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\twere alert<\/em> intended to be the same sort of out-of-control crazy show as the 911<\/em> franchise (maybe the pool-jump is close), there wouldn’t be any problem at all with bursting out laughing at random points. But when Nikki tells worried parents \u201cWe will get your baby back\u201d and the desire to sing the Chili’s song proved irresistible\u2026I felt bad, but mostly bad that I wasn’t watching something better.<\/p>\n

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\tCaan and Ramirez are both fine.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n