I’ve now watched the three episodes that I received (the pilot and presumably the first two episodes) of In Plain Sight. In Plain Sight is a crime drama centering around Mary Shannon (Mary McCormak), a US Marshal located in Albuquerque, N.M. who is responsible for bringing people into the Federal Witness Protection program.
I really enjoyed the pilot very much, or at least the rough cut of it. Of the three it was definitely my favorite and the third episode my least favorite. I enjoyed the pilot more because there was far more in the way of character development, and it was much funnier writing than either of the other two episodes. In the pilot it was mostly a cross between comedy and drama like FOX’s House and ABC’s Boston Legal – two procedural shows I actually do enjoy very much.
I’m not typically a big fan of procedural shows – shows that follow the same format but tell a new story each week, but House and Boston Legal are exceptions. Both shows are extremely well written and typically find a nice balance between comedy and drama. Courtroom and hospital settings seem to work for procedural, but I’m not sure about indoctrination into the Federal Witness Protection program as a premise.
The way they handled that in the second episode, where a child needs to be put into the program was fine, but in the third episode the discomfort suffered by a family who needed to be put into the program (through no fault of their own, really) didn’t work for me very much. I couldn’t really buy into the premise and didn’t love the writing very much. But as a bonus, Wendell Pierce who played Detective “Bunk” Moreland on The Wire was in the episode.
I hope the show’s writers and producers will figure out a couple of things:
- How to blend more comedy back into the show – the actors can clearly pull it off based on the pilot
- How to make the main characters more the focus (House and BL do this well usually)
Still, I enjoyed the pilot. You can check it out yourself this Sunday at 10pm on USA.
If you’re interested to find out more about the show’s characters, I discussed them in more detail here.
Hey Robert how do you feel about The Closer? I llove House, and so when you compared the show, I was considering watching it. Mary had something to do in a Howard Stern movie, which kinda made me not want to wawtch her, cuz I thought her acting sucked, and she probably got the show cuz she's a hot blonde MILF, but if you like House and The Closer, then our tastes might be similar enough for me to consider this recomendation. Boston Legal's demo is too old for me, no offense, I'm just not a Shatner fan.
Jenny, I've never seen The Closer (though know it gets great ratings). I'd forgotten completely that Mary M. played Stern's wife in his movie that has now been years ago. You should check out the pilot tonight and see what you think. I'll add The Closer to the list