TV is the New Reading

Bidding a fond farewell to ABC’s ‘The Unusuals’

Shows come and go. Who knows why viewership clings to one concept and shuns another? Anyone able to make those kinds of predictions can make a fortune in television production.

I, as it happens, would not.

The kind of show I enjoy -- and I think I’ve mentioned this before -- is not especially popular. True, I’ve enjoyed big boffo productions along with everyone else, brain candy productions, “I Survived a Japanese Gameshow” and the such like. But whereas the most popular shows on television are in the “CSI” and “Bachelorette” range, generally I’m following smaller market cable dramas and niche programming on the networks.

Shows like the aptly named “The Unusuals,” for example.

ABC’s “The Unusuals” closed up shop with a series finale about three weeks ago and I couldn’t bear to watch it. True, there was all this other stuff on the box I was trying to keep up with for the purpose of this column and its affiliated podcast at (http://tjaman.libsyn.com). A viewer can easily go into media overload.

Also, when the episode was described to me as the series finale -- meaning that after a short midseason run, the show was vaya con dios and would not be coming back this fall -- I wanted to carve some time out to truly enjoy it. I did this with the closing episode of “Pushing Daisies” a few weeks back, I imagine I will do so with “Kings” and “Eli Stone” when those series complete their Saturday runs, and I’m very glad that this past weekend, I did so with “The Unusuals” as well.

‘The Unusuals’

The show explored the lives of the detectives in the NYPD’s 2nd Precinct. It lived up to its title by not being a cookie-cutter police procedural. Harold Perrineau (”Lost”) played Det. Leo Banks, who is convinced he will die at his current age of 42. Adam Goldberg’s Det. Eric Delahoy was experiencing a different reality from those around him because of a brain tumor diagnosed by a coroner.

Joshua Close as Det. Henry Cole is a born-again cop struggling to forgive himself for gunning down a former friend and partner in crime who threatened to expose him. Bringing the comic relief is Kai Lennox as Det. Eddie Alvarez, who on top of being too by-the-book for his own good, tended to refer to himself in the third person.

Jeremy Renner as Det. Jason Walsh is so observant he’s psychic, he’s got a relationship going with Monique Gabriela Curnen’s Det. Allison Beaumont, and his new partner, Amber Tamblyn as Det. Casey Shraeger, is brought in by Terry Kinney as Sgt. Harvey Brown to investigate suspicions of police corruption in Walsh’s former partner, who she replaced the night of his death.

It was a densely written, character-driven show. There wasn’t a splinter of dead weight in the production. The writers had a good story to tell and they were telling it. “The Unusuals” showed the random, goofy. human side of policing a city like New York with repeat offenders and colorful characters who knew the 2nd Precinct as well as the cops, even helping out with occasional police work.

Colorful

It didn’t get much more colorful than in the final episode, the squad was investigating a series of break-ins where people’s apartments had been used without their knowledge to film pornography. Most were distressed and upset their homes had been ... violated, to say the least, but one couple took it very much in stride, laughing hysterically. “Honey!” the wife guffawed -- “Our fridge was in porn!”

For her part, Schraeger was investigating the story of a woman with a shattered identity. She’d been attacked 10 years prior at a high school dance and fell into a coma while her attackers had gotten away.  Recently she’d begun filing complaints against random men who sparked her memories of the attack, on average about once a month.

While it would’ve been easy to dismiss her as a flake or take her in for nuisance filing, Schraeger takes her story to heart. Det. Walsh, her partner, tags her for “E.I.D.” -- emotionally involved detective -- but she runs the real attackers to earth based on a composite sketch and a good hunch. In the end, she can’t save the woman -- she’s gone decidedly around the bend -- but Schraeger can give her a little peace of mind, and she does so.

The show had a lot of continuing storylines that  in the end got no resolution, but I for one feel that “The Unusuals,” striking the right balance between comedy and human drama, went out with its head held high. There’s not a person in this cast who didn’t tell a good story and I wish them well in their future endeavors. As for “The Unusuals,” well done, little show. Well done.