Starring Debra Messing, Josh Lucas, Laz Alonso, Janina Gavankar, Enrico Colantoni
I’m not sure what I just watched.
I think NBC just tried to do a buddy cop dramedy, like Bones or Castle. But for some reason, they added that the main character has two kids that are basically the spawn of Satan.
Laura is played by Debra Messing, and she’s a detective and a mother. She’s sassy and no nonsense. We know this because her car is ridiculously dirty and has goldfish sprawled all over. Her partner (Laz Alonso) is void of discernable personality, and her husband (Josh Lucas) is a charming jackass. Oh, and her kids are probably insane.
The film has an odd comedic tone, suggesting it wants to be a comedy cop show, but the characters are not that interesting. Castle has two lead characters with obvious personalities. Bones has two characters with distinct personalities. Mysteries of Laura only has one… and she’s not a character I’d want to watch for a whole season.
I think this is my first and last episode of Mysteries of Laura. It doesn’t work for me. It’s not the worst thing I’ve seen, but with a ton of new shows rolling out and shows I already watch returning, my time is too precious to watch a silly cop drama with the children of the corn.
She’s literally given two children who, in the pilot alone, paint a room red, shit in the principals chair, pee on each other, vomit, shoot dart guns at each other, and get expelled from school. Is the conflict here that her children are batshit crazy, and she also happens to be a cop? Or is this a cop show? I can’t tell.
Josh Lucas is given the awesome job of playing an asshat, who cheated on his wife, and now won’t divorce her. He haunts her like some creepy ex-boyfriend who just won’t accept that it’s over. But she’s OK with it, because they have kids… who he couldn’t give two real shits about.
If you like Debra Messing, then I hope you like to look at her, because this is an against-type role for her. She’s one of the least likeable antiheros in recent memory. I have to wonder why this show was greenlit in the first place. If I had been shown this pilot alongside other pilots, I definitely would have passed on this pilot, even if one of the other pilots was just a show about knitting.
FINAL GRADE: D+
