Coded

A little late to the party, I watched the entire series [13 episodes] of Fox's recently-cancelled Chicago Code. On-the-air, it only survived about half the season before the ratings forced it to be pulled. Watching those first 6-or-so episodes via Hulu, it was definitely disappointing. However, the final half of the season/series improved and actually left me wanting more. Oh well.

First, the bad. Early in the show, they tried to give all of the characters ["good" and "evil"] a chance to do voice-over narrations during the episodes. Trite stuff like "growing up in Chicago you gotta be tough" and "being an undercover agent means you have to do bad stuff sometimes". Unless Morgan Freeman is doing the narration, it rarely goes well. Your characters should show me all of this by their actions; you don't need to spoon-feed me, thanks. They clearly realized this at some point, because towards the last few episodes narration was almost completely cut out.

While The Chicago Code had the guts to try a female Police Superintendent [and succeeded], they failed with another take on the female beat cop. Watchers of Dexter will sympathize, as his sister is also infamously bad as a policewoman. It's lame when you can guess things like "oh I bet she runs into that house and screws it up because she's afraid of her personal feelings for so-and-so." Boring. Predictable.

Chicagoans love to hang out under the El. All the time.

Perhaps New Yorkers or Los Angelites[?] can relate, but it does seem kind of silly when a show is shot in your hometown and every shot seems to include the same things. For The Chicago Code, it seems every place the cops would visit backed up to some "El" tracks. Every car chase either took place under those very same "El" tracks or through Millennium Park downtown. I guess it is fun to know all the places they are, and you want to make use of the Chicago on-location rights... but it just was a little over-the-top for me.

Now, the good. The lead actors/actresses overall were pretty decent. Episode titles were clever and Chicagoey. Watching the last few episodes, the power-brokering really came into its own. That's what Chicago is all about. "Da Mayor" finally started making appearances in the show, and the big bad alderman started throwing his weight around. Politics started to seem more personal. I really started to get flashbacks from The Wire. If only some of the characters had matured a little earlier in the series, perhaps network TV would have gained a respectable police procedural. Chicago deserves a another good show, and we almost had one here. We'll have to see how Kelsey Grammer's Chicago-mayor drama "Boss" turns out. Here's hoping...