Tag Archives: Major Crimes

Mondays deliver Entertainment

#Supergirl #Blindspot #Scorpion #Gotham #Legends #MajorCrimes

If you are struggling to find something to watch live on television on Monday nights I am left wondering why.  Fox’s Gotham going head to head with CBS’s Supergirl means my DVR is hard at work, leaving me with only one decision — which show am I watching live, and which show am I tuning into after the fact, but definitely watching.

Supergirl

For me, Supergirl is shiny and new and I watch it each week because I can not resist, and the actor playing James Olsen, Mehcad Brooks, is leaping from small screens with his portrayal.  Gotham on the other hand is great entertainment, but their arcs work well in the marathon watching format where I have an easier time keeping track of the threads, and who is where doing what in the vast city / world that the creators have Gotham are serving up to their viewers each week.   (If you missed it, you may want to take a listen to our recently released podcast about Season 1 of Gotham.)

The next hour of prime time brings both CBS’s Scorpion and TNT’s Major Crimes.  Scorpion mixes attempts at intelligent problem solving with humorous scenes and lovably awkward characters.  There are certainly moments you can stop and think about and question, but if you allow yourself to simply get caught up in the momentum of the episodes, they take you on a fun and exhilarating ride, week after week,  and offer hope that intelligent good-hearted people are out in the world, trying to keep us safe, and make our world a better place for us to live.  Then again, the guys who can hack any computer get sent on a mission to Cuba where there are few computers, and are getting ready to take on an assignment to area 51, so as I said — there is a strong sense of humor that flows through and carries the shows along as well.

TNT’s Major Crimes evolved out of the Kyra Sedgwick show The Closer,  and for those who were worried a change in team lead, and show title, might spell the beginning of the end, it has not been the case here.  Mary McDonnell‘s character Sharon Raydor has come in with a different approach, determined to not only get confessions, but see the guilty parties go to jail, and in doing so has taken the show from a determination to close cases to a determination to get justice.

As if the DVR had not been doing enough for one night, next up is the decision of whether to view live, or later, NBC’s Blindspot vs. ABC’s Castle, with CBS’s NCIS LA also in the mix as well.

NBC_Blindspot_728x90_wk2_dayofI’ll confess, of the three shows offered in this hour of Prime Time, my first choice to record and watch later is Blindspot (which NBC has already said will have a second season).   Not because I do not enjoy it, but because it is a show full of details I do not want to risk missing.  What if the phone rings when they show the tattoo that means everything this week?  What if for some reason I’m not looking at the screen when some great reveal occurs?  I want to see these things.  Blindspot is not a show you can listen to and catch every aspect of importance.  Castle has a lot of great character interplay, and moments, but if you miss a moment it rarely feels like it changes your understanding of the episode or season.  They certainly enhance your enjoyment — and are appreciated, and the talent that goes into the script and acting is appreciated… but if I have to choose 1 show I can record… I lean towards Blindspot vs. Castle.

As for NCIS: Los Angeles… thankfully we live in the age of Video On Demand, an age where if you can only record 1 show, while watching another, you can actually view what all three networks aired in a given hour, provided you have enough hours in your day.

pre_legendstif_120The other thing to be thankful for, is TNT showing episodes more than once in a night, offering me the chance to watch Season 2 of Legends as it airs.  Where Season 1 focused on a different Legend each week, and the many faces Martin Odom was capable of taking on, Season 2 is delving into his search to discover who he was before he had an accident that robbed him of his memory.  A bit more confusing in nature, because the scripts are moving between both locations and time frames, season 2 has the potential to either be eye opening, or something I need to re-watch to understand.

Rusty Beck’s Identity Series

On Major Crimes the character of Rusty has been searching for a missing person’s identity.  The person may have been “missing, she may now be dead, but does that mean she need only be known, forever, as a Jane Doe?

If you have already been watching Major Crimes, but have not watched the Identity Series of videos the Rusty Beck character has been posting on youtube, we are gathering them here so you can find them in one place, and order, to view.

Identity: Part 1

Identity: Part 2

Identity: Part 3

Identity: Part 4

Identity: Part 5

Identity: Part 6

Identity: Part 7

Identity: Part 8

Identity: Part 9

Identity: Part 10 (the conclusion)

Major Crimes

Fans of The Closer, which starred Kyra Sedgwick, were disappointed when the show was cancelled after seven season on TNT.  Then, like a phoenix rising from the ashes came Major Crimes.  Remarkably similar to The Closer Major Crimes has a strikingly similar cast, with a new leader, and a new guiding principle.  It is no longer enough to close the case — now they want a confession, a conclusion that is so iron clad the D.A. can walk in and cut a deal, not only saving the citizens a costly trial, and meaning the state knows the guilty party will indeed go to jail, instead of pulling some legal wizardry at trial, and getting away with a trial we have just spent an hour being convinced they committed.

 After 109 episodes in which cases were closed, week after week, the Major Crimes division has spent 66 episodes making sure the criminals will go away.  One of the most interesting aspects of Major Crimes has been the use of Rusty (Graham Patrick Martin) to take a character who we gradually saw more and more of near the end of The Closer, Captain Sharon Raydor (Mary McDonnell), and take her from a very brusque by-the-book officer on the side of Internal Affairs, to a more sympathetic, maternal team leader.

Rusty, a street kid whose testimony was needed in a trial, started as a rough around the edges boy who had no interest in the members of Major Crimes getting into his life and pressing him to testify.  Now, he is a part of Captain Raydor’s life, his adopted son, they have shown one another a definition of family that reminds the audience we can choose who we call family, and that being there for people, no matter what is perhaps the most important thing — mattering infinitely more than the value of physical gifts given at holidays, or shared DNA.

One of the great subplots of this season, that has extended to a series of online videos, has been Rusty’s realization that when he was living on the streets no one was looking for him.  But now, he has Sharon… and the team as well, but predominantly Sharon, and that means, above all else, he has someone who would file a Missing Person’s Report should he go missing.  It sounds so simple, and yet, to someone who has had no one to rely on, or trust, for so long, it means so much.

Upon seeing a Missing Person who was found dead, and realizing no one filed a report on her, Rusty sets out to identify the girl… the person who, under other circumstances, could have been him.

Rusty Beck’s series of Identity videos can be seen on Facebook, YouTube, or the TNT Website.

Major Crimes airs Monday Nights on TNT.

Major Crimes

When the character of Sharon Raydor was first introduced on TNT’s The Closer she was what that show needed.  A counter-balance to Brenda Leigh Johnson, Sharon Raydor is a strong woman who follows the rules, to the letter, and did the tough job of investigating officer involved shootings and trying to prevent lawsuits against the LAPD.

In those early appearances, where she was guest staring in the world of characters the audience had come to know and love over several seasons, there were virtually no soft edges, especially in the beginning.  As time wore on we found out she had children — it was almost a revelation when the audience discovered she had a heart.  Sharon Raydor felt Brenda Leigh Johnson was a kindred spirit and they might have the potential to be friends, and the two seemed startled to refer to one another as friends.

Then TNT announced The Closer was coming to an end… and Major Crimes would rise in its place.  It was an odd feeling to many regular viewers, since The Closer had been all about the team in the Major Crimes division.  Why change the name of the show?  What was happening?  A cast shake up was happening, but was that all?

Then there was the feeling of how was Sharon Raydor, who was a solid upstanding character, but had thus far lacked the charisma of Brenda Leigh Johnson, going to take over as the lead of the show?

Graham Patrick Martin, in the role of Rusty Beck, made the difference.  Rusty, who first appeared at the very end of the The Closer, as a witness to a crime, gave the audience a new perspective from which to see Captain Sharon Raydor… suddenly she was not just the always at the office, always on duty cop.  Rusty needed a protector, a guardian, and through him we got to see her as Sharon, in her apartment, occasionally even with her heart on her sleeve.  Through Rusty she was humanized, opened up, and softened into a character the audience could care about just as we had grown to know and love Brenda Leigh Johnson.

The strengths of The Closer were carried forward into Major Crimes, even as a new leader brought a new style, a new goal, and subtle shifts in how the episodes unfold.  I may miss Brenda’s drawer full of candy, and her forever saying Thank You, but in the end I love that not only does Sharon close the case with a confession, she goes that step further and gets a deal that means we know the guilty party will do time.

And, as an added bonus for long time watchers of the shows, Jon Tenney has been reprising his role of FBI Agent Fritz Howard (otherwise known as Brenda Leigh Johnson’s husband), until recently with just the occasional appearance.  But the final three episodes of the current season clearly set him up with the opportunity for a spin-off of his own.  With a strong-willed, determined second in command (Laurie Holden), and a detective with a skill for going undercover (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) those three could could make a strong core cast to yet another powerful show.