Wanted - TV Review

If you Google the word "wanted" you will not only find listings for TNT's gritty new police drama about an elite group of investigators whose sole purpose is to cross off names from the LAPD's list of most wanted criminals, you will also find the FBI's real-life most wanted list, complete with a picture of Osama Bin Laden. Judging by the FBI's list, finding these guys is tricky (some of them have been on there for a while) and reading too much about why they're being hunted leaves one a little bit terrified. It's nice to think that there just might be a motley group of real life detectives, like the ones so slickly portrayed in Wanted, out there keeping the peace.

From Spelling Television, Wanted's list of producers includes Aaron himself along with partner E Duke Vincent and Jorge Zamacona, who is responsible for such great shows like Oz and Homicide: Life On The Street. For Zamacona the central focus of Wanted was the cops. A group of "best in their field" detectives, each one of the characters has a unique specialty that they bring to their investigations, consequently this isn't a natural pairing and the tension within the group attests to that. Zamacona was tired of stale cop characters and wanted this team of detectives be as real as possible. "These guys are vulgar, they're irreverent, they're professional and they're heroic," he says about the real life cops he spent time with, "I wanted this show to be authentic to the men and women who go out and do the job." Thanks to cable, where writers aren't restricted by as harsh FCC regulations, Wanted's psychedelic, music video feel is full of vulgarity and irreverence, just like Zamacona asked.

The hard knocks, rough around the edges detectives of Wanted join a group of rather successful shows that have made the grizzly streets of Los Angeles home, and it will be interesting to see if they have enough of an edge to distinguish themselves from the pack. Like The Shield, the specialized group of law enforcement officers use an unassuming wear house as their headquarters and like The Closer, their unconventional methods always have them coming up against the higher ups. The show exploits the uber criminal, those that are naughty enough to make it on a list at all, and consequently registers high on the graphic violence scale and it also gives us enough insight into the detective's personal lives to keep long, all night stake-outs intriguing. Ultimately, Wanted tries to be a character piece, the cops, which include heavy metal rockers and unassuming, butt-kicking girls, are so good at what they do that catching the bad guys doesn't seem to be the issue, it's keeping their egos in check that stresses them out. In the end however, Wanted is just another formulaic crime drama that doesn't challenge the genre's mold in any way, but with such ready access to FBI lists and never ending news reports of unexplainable violence, the show might just find a niche with those of us who need proof, even if it's fictional, that someone out there is on it.