Well's 'Southland' successfully brings new style to old genre

    "ER" ended just two Thursdays ago, but executive producer John Wells wasted no time moving on to his next project: the gritty new police drama "Southland."
    Set in Los Angeles, the series portrays the tough, crime-ridden streets of the city instead of the glamorous, star-studded side that viewers may be used to seeing on other shows. This setting, along with a strong cast and multiple storylines, gives the series a feeling of authenticity as it follows LAPD beat cops and detectives through their daily routines.
    One of those cops is fresh-out-of-the-academy Ben Sherman, played by Benjamin McKenzie, whose last major television role was Ryan Atwood on "The O.C." In that series, McKenzie's character was a troubled teen coming from an impoverished life to live with the upper-class elite of Orange County. Here, he plays quite the opposite: a young man from apparently wealthy roots who joins the police force and begins working at the bottom of the totem pole for unknown reasons. Sherman's background is sure to be fleshed out in later episodes but currently lends him an air of mystery.
    Sherman's training officer is veteran cop John Cooper, played by Michael Cudlitz, who is no stranger to LAPD cop roles as he also played Ana-Lucia Cortez's partner on "Lost." Officer Cooper is tough, arrogant and knowledgeable — something he doesn't let Sherman forget. Cooper constantly makes fun of Sherman (apparently part of the rookie hazing ritual) and reminds him what it means to be a "real cop."
    The rest of the cast is rounded out, most notably by Regina King as Detective Lydia Adams, Tom Everett Scott as Detective Russell Clarke and Shawn Hatosy as Detective Sammy Bryant. Although these characters are not fleshed out much in the pilot episode, they give viewers a good look at the detective side of police work and offer a nice contrast to the patrol work of Officers Cooper and Sherman.
    The show's pilot episode opens at a crime scene with Officer Sherman crouching next to a body, looking lost and dazed. A flashback then takes the audience back 18 hours, documenting the events of Sherman's first day that led to this shooting. Interspersed with his and Cooper's day on patrol — which includes responding to an apartment with a bad smell and finding his first dead body — are two other storylines involving the detectives. Adams and Clarke investigate the disappearance of a young girl, while Bryant and his partner Detective Moretta probe the shooting of a young boy by a group of gangbangers.
    Although the patrol cops (specifically Sherman) are at the center of the episode, the storyline involving Bryant and Moretta packs the biggest emotional punch. The victim is a young boy who fearfully announces "I don't bang" when a trio of gangsters pulls up next to him. The gangsters proceed to riddle him with bullets. When Detectives Bryant and Moretta bring three young girls who witnessed the shooting in for questioning, they are afraid to talk because they don't want to have to testify in court. When one girl's mother arrives, she tells Bryant that he won't understand the situation until he lives in her inner-city neighborhood himself. "We're fighting our own war on terror right here," she proclaims, perfectly summing up the disconnect between the white, middle-class detectives and the lower-class urban citizens they have vowed to protect.
    The show toes a fine line between giving a realistic portrayal of street life in Los Angeles and simply playing into racial, gender and other stereotypes. A female patrol cop is ridiculed for her desire to become a SWAT member and Sherman is mockingly called Canadian when he doesn't react to others' jokes. It is also subtly revealed that Cooper is gay, which could be a good opportunity for the show to break away from stereotypes, as producer Wells has said in a teleconference that Cooper's sexual orientation will "simply be a fact of his life."
    While it is not quite in the league of now-defunct cable cop dramas "The Shield" or "The Wire" (which is made glaringly evident through the show's bleeping of swears, "Arrested Development"-style), "Southland" brings a fresh take on the network police series to television and refrains from feeling like just another "Law and Order" franchise entry. Unlike some of the more lofty new dramas, "Southland" deals with a familiar and tested genre, but brings an exciting style that viewers should enjoy.