TV GUIDE: Ask Matt: Major Crimes, Covert Affairs, MTV's Inbetweeners and More
Sep 4, 2012
by Matt Roush
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Question: Let's play armchair programmer. While I am enjoying Major Crimes, it does feel a bit like we're just waiting for Brenda Leigh to show. Do you think they could have benefited from holding Major Crimes until the traditional December run of The Closer to let us get a little distance? Or is it purely a creative question? Major Crimes looks just like The Closer. Could the show benefit from some slight visual tweaks? Perhaps a slightly different opening sequence? — Steven
Matt Roush: For me, the problem here is more creative. It made good business sense for TNT to launch the spin-off right on the heels of the heavily promoted Closer finale, and it paid off. But from a critical point of view, it only accentuates the problem with Major Crimes: the lack of a compelling and entertaining central figure like Kyra Sedgwick's much-missed Brenda. It feels like there's a hole at the heart of the series, which isn't helped much by the new emphasis on deal-making over Brenda's form of gotcha interrogation. By comparison, Mary McDonnell's Sharon Raydor seems like a humorless schoolmarm, and the subplot involving her ward Rusty isn't so much humanizing her as bringing the show to a screeching halt whenever he shows up to pout. You're right, of course, that comparisons can't help but be made when Major Crimes copies so many visual and structural elements from The Closer. It really does feel like we're watching the exact same show. Only less so...
Major Crimes airs Monday at 9/8C on TNT.
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