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Review:
Snoops
Written
by James Koonce, September 29th, 1999
Glenn Hall
(Gina Gershon)
doesn't have time to let a little thing like the Constitution
get in her way as she runs her private investigation firm. Whether
it's wire taps, high-tech surveillance, or simple intimidation
to get the answers she needs, she uses any means necessary. It's
all fair game, and all just part of a day's work on ABC's new
drama Snoops.
Of course
the new hire, Dana Plant (Paula Marshall), comes from a police
detective background, so she finds herself butting heads with
Glenn over any number of procedural differences. (You know, stuff
like Miranda rights.) But as Glenn is quick to point out to Dana,
detective Dorothy isn't in police department Kansas anymore -
she's crossed to the dark side now. Also on Glenn's team are Manny
Lott (Danny Nucci)
and Roberta Young (Paula
Jai Parker). He's the agency's technocratic whiz kid, she's
a bombshell with a certain gift for cracking insurance cases.
Both have a little trouble at first warming up to their new co-worker,
but as the premiere's plot unfolds, they're forced to set their
differences aside and be the team that Glenn pays them to be in
order to get the job done.
"Sexy sleuths"
is a genre that's been missing from the airwaves for awhile, but
we can thank Ally McBeal and The Practice creator
David E. Kelley, curiously enough, for bringing it back to us.
Originally conceived as a man-woman combination, Glenn and Dana
took on a whole new dimension with the interest of feature film
actress Gershon in the veteran PI role. Kelley quickly reworked
the pilot, excising the sexual tension between the two leads (although
given Gershon's performance in the lesbian caper flick Bound,
this step probably wasn't necessary) and replacing it with a certain
catty female wariness of one another. The result is a bit muddled,
a tepid thriller laden with Kelley's unmistakable quirks which
don't quite suit producer-director Allan Arkush's glitzy Miami
Vice visuals. Kelley's script seems hastily done; intricate
plot machinations are ordinarily his specialty, but in the higher-stakes,
faster-paced world outside the courtroom, he seems less surefooted.
Glenn and Dana are in the midst of a murder investigation, but
the whole thing goes pretty much by the numbers. There's no last-minute
twist, no Kelley-esque reveal which makes the whole story pop.
Overall the
actors are up to the task of their slim roles, but even within
the span of the premiere episode, the good girl/bad girl rapport
between Dana and Glenn becomes tiresome. Marshall, so winning
in last year's clever Cupid, seems out of her element playing
a hardened plainclothes detective. Her natural inclination is
to show us the woman behind the badge, but that person doesn't
jive with the dialogue the jaded cop is required to spit out.
And Gershon is appropriately sleazy as Glenn, but ultimately behaves
like characters on TV shows do - the script says she has all the
answers, so we never really fear that she might get in over her
head because she doesn't act that way. Jai Parker as Roberta is
just one-note surly (though we never get a clue why), leaving
only Nucci to breeze in like a breath of fresh air. Manny delights
in the day-to-day machinations of his job, be it breaking into
people's houses, spying on them from not-so-discreet distances,
or simply shooting them with his tranquilizer gun.
By the time
the team has cracked the case by episode's end, there's such an
anti-climactic feeling of "so what?" that we're left scratching
our heads and wondering, is that really it? None of the characters
seem to be affected by anything they see, hear, or do during the
episode (including the perpetrators), and there's none of the
thought-provoking Kelley hallmarks which make his other dramas
so distinctive - ruminations on human nature, love, interpersonal
discord. But how could they be? They're all exceedingly content
- Glenn's laissez-faire attitude seems to have rubbed off, but
gotten distilled as it went. In that sense, the show is perfectly
set in shallow Southern California - everyone's just too blasé
to give a damn.
Believe me,
I know how they feel.
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