Graceland - First Season Review (3 episodes so far).

While there were a couple other shows vying for my attentions as well as the first write up in the new Television Review category, I opted for USA Network's Graceland. This show is written by Jeff Eastin who also created the networks White Collar hit show. Many other review posts have seemed to have fun calling this one a dark or gritty-dark cops show, but the dark I can see coming down the road. What I see more of is the potential for character building with some crime drama filler.

The show centers around a safe-house that was a previously seized beach front condo owned by a drug lord. The FBI apparently got together with other agencies (DEA and Customs) and put all their top guns in one house. As goofy as this might seem it is actually based on real events. The show would have you believe that the actual house that the show is based around is what the "true events" refers to but its not.  From what I can tell, Eastin based this on a DEA director who pioneered a program to use seized property's as safe houses. Not one particular property that housed agents from various acronym happy organizations. Either way, the premise behind the show is entertaining enough, if not completely believable.

So you have a top of his class FBI geek who dreams of one day becoming the director of the whole shabang. So they toss him into this house and as we follow him around it gives the writers the perfect opportunity to tell the audience about everything and everybody. It is a good way to introduce the audience to story elements. Give them someone who is just as new to the situation as them and everyone can learn together.

So as we all learn about the 6 various agents who live in the house dubbed Graceland we also have the pleasure of being treated to some decent cop - robber drama. This is secondary to the drama being played out by the two main characters, MikeWarren (Aaron Tveit) and Paul Briggs (Daniel Sunjata). It is a simple enough setup. Mike achieved some outrageous score on his FBI exam and apparently the only person to ever score higher was you guessed it, Briggs. Briggs is assigned to "train" Mike and show him the world of undercover FBI work in the real world. Mike plays the part of the over-achieving FBI nerd well but we come to find out later that he is really there to investigate Briggs, for what? We do not know and do not find out for a while. This is supposed to keep us coming back. Well, that and to see what happens to the other agents of course.

The show is not all that bad. I mean, there are couple parts that were somewhat unbelievable and they sort of came down to what I would call new show jitters maybe. For example, there is a scene in episode 3 (most recent one as of the time of this writing) where Mike and Paul are driving away from an undercover op that they just barely got away with. So they are understandable anxious, nervous, and full of adrenalin. As they are speaking to each other and screaming with excitement you can catch glimpses of the police escort and trail/camera cars in building windows, jeep windshields, etc.. It was just one of those moments that made me say, "c'mon, really?"

Other than that however the show does have entertainment value. The drama seems well placed and there is definitely room for inter-character romance as well as intrigue and some comedic value. So overall it is a show I will watch.. at least, and if for nothing else, just to see how the first season pans out. The USA Network got some decent actors for the cast. Check out the full cast and crew over at the IMDB page for the show.

I really do not watch too much on USA Network at the moment. As it is I do not have much free time so the time I do spend watching television or picking up new shows is relatively planned. Squeezing in a new one like Graceland means that something else would usually have to go, but for right now I will just add it to the list of shows I watch and we will see where it lands. Until I see something that really bugs me or something that blows me away, you might not hear too much more from me about the show. But who knows, we shall see. Throwing down something about television is sort of new for me so we will have to see how it goes. But for now, this one is on the list!