There’s something refreshing and uplifting about NBC’s new cop drama Southland, even with its gritty, washed-out palette and uncompromisingly bleak view of Los Angeles life. Ben McKenzie, in his first television role since the brooding Ryan Atwood on The OC, plays Ben Sherman, the show’s erstwhile protagonist, a brooding rookie officer with “90210 written all over his face.” In his first eighteen hours on the job, he vomits at the sight of a rotting corpse and engages in a shootout leaving him with his first kill. His fellow officers have an equally eventful day, which includes trying to solve a drive-by shooting with few witnesses willing to talk and searching for an abduction victim. As one might expect from the producer of ER and The West Wing, the show relies on the strength of its characters and plot lines rather than frivolous romantic entanglements or overwrought gimmicks.

A day in the life of the LAPD is, through the filter of Southland, a day of frustrated questionings, rude awakenings, and crinkled foreheads. The crimes are gruesome—and often gruesomely depicted—and the officers’ off-color banter isn’t so much the uncouth utterances of a hardened force as a desperate attempt to find levity in the crushing weight of the world’s brutality. Recently released gangbangers go on ABG (anybody goes) shooting sprees and men try to bargain with prostitutes while their babies watch from the back seat. The show’s distinctly liberal take on existence—pessimism about things as they stand coupled with confidence in the possibility of improvement—seems appropriate for these times. But Southland‘s cold and hardened stare is also a cruel reminder that calls for hope and change are often little more than empty platitudes. As Ben’s training officer John Cooper (Michael Cudlitz) notes, “Like driving through the sewer in a glass-bottom boat, right?”

Southland airs on Thursdays at 10 p.m. on NBC. Image by Richard Foreman, courtesy of NBC.

KEYWORDS: Southland, TV