8/25/15

TNT Premieres Public Morals

If you are tied of the modern police serial and need a change, how about a police serial that plays with the past to become more The Untouchables than NCIS? Tonight's premiere of Public Morals on TNT will try to take you there.  Here are the basics and a trailer:

Edward Burns writes, directs, executive produces and stars alongside Michael Rappaport and Elizabeth Masucci in this powerful police drama that will take viewers to the seedy, gritty streets and bright, seductive lights of 1960s New York. The series centers on Terry Muldoon (Burns), an officer of the Public Morals Division, which investigates vice crimes in the city. Many of Muldoon's fellow cops in the division walk a thin line between morality and crime as vice-related temptations threaten to snare even the best of officers, including Muldoon's partner, Charlie Bullman (Rapoport). As Muldoon watches the Hells Kitchen streets where he grew up devoured by an escalating war within two factions of the Irish-American Mob, he becomes more determined than ever to fight back against the city's dark underbelly so he can provide a safe place where he and his wife, Christine (Masucci), can raise their family.

It looks more interesting than your average cop show, much in the way Justified was a fun spin on an old genre.  Executive produced by Stephen Spielberg and starring a great team that includes Ed Burns, Michael Rapaport, Timothy Hutton, and Brian Dennehy, you have the ingredients for something great. 

Mary McNamara in the Los Angeles Times calls the show 

...a picaresque, briskly written and quickly captivating series that is neither afraid nor ashamed of entertaining its audience.  Though it deals with its genre's big issues (the difference between law and order, the danger of defining oneself through loyalty), "Public Morals" does not fall prey to the current epidemic of Televisionous Prestiguous (symptoms may include swollen monologues, lethargy and sensitivity to normal light).

It sounds like the antidote to True Detective.  Sign me up! 

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