The Show:
Every once in a while a TV show comes along that breaks new ground in
the way it tells a story and the way you look at a its subjects.
As far as police shows go, Dragnet brought the police procedural to the
small screen, examining the steps an officer takes in solving a crime.
Hill Street Blues gave a realistic look at the life of a police officer,
concerning itself with the daily trials and tribulations, both personal
and professional that cops face. Another innovative series was NBC's
short lived show Boomtown, a series that looked at a crime from
all angles. This program told its story from the point of view of
everyone involved with a crime: The officers, the victim, the paramedic,
the prosecutor, the perpetrator, and even the reporters who cover the crimes.
The first season of this excellent series is now available on DVD.
The stories on Boomtown unfold in an unusual fashion. Told
in a nonlinear manner, each episode is centered around a crime. A
title card tells the name of the person whose point of view we are going
to be following, and then a chapter unfolds. Events both before and
after the crime are told through the eyes of different people, so you get
to see the crime from all angles. Like the classic Akira Kurosawa
movie Rashômon, the meaning of events often change when seen
from a new point of view.
Another unique aspect to the show is that the focus of the program changes
from episode to episode. Sometimes it is the solution of the crime
that takes center stage, other shows concern themselves with the after
effects of a crime, or how the officers react to what they have to investigate.
Given this and the nonlinear nature of the show, jumping forwards and backwards
in time to tell various participants stories, the show keeps you on your
toes. You are never certain what is going to happen or where the
show is going.
This program isn't just fancy techniques of narrating a story though.
The stories themselves are excellent, and the characters are fleshed out
three dimensional people. Different shows focus on different individuals,
but they are all interesting characters with unique personalities.
Over the course of the season each one develops and grows.
Detective Joel Stevens (Donnie Wahlberg who appeared in Band of Brothers)
is the perfect cop on the outside, but his personal life is falling down
around his ears through no fault of his own. His partner Bobby 'Fearless'
Smith (Mykelti Williamson) is a Gulf War verteran who manages to keep the
ghosts that haunt him at bay. Mostly. Tom Turcotte (Jason Gedrick)
and Ray Hechler (Gary Basaraba) are the patrol officers who are on the
streets every day. Rounding out the main characters are paramedic
Teresa Ortiz (Lana Parrilla,) the ambitious DA, David McNorris (Neal McDonough,)
and his mistress and local reporter Andrea Little (Nina Garbiras.)
It is hard to describe any one show, since each one has twists and surprises.
I can honestly say that I was genuinely surprised at least once in each
episode. That's something that doesn't happen very often, and after
a few shows I started to expect twists to occur. Even so, I was still
surprised. Sometimes the twists are large and really grab your attention,
and at other times they are smaller but clear up an odd occurrence earlier
in the show. In the first episode for instance, detective Joel Stevens
gets a call form his wife on his cell phone as he is covering an exit,
waiting for a perp to come out. Rather than call her back, he stays
on the phone with her while he apprehends the criminal. It was so odd,
telling her to hold on as he handcuffs the criminal he just caught, that
it was almost laughably bad. But by the time the episode was over,
the viewer understands why he kept her on the phone.
This is an extreamily well written show. The best episodes in
this series can extraordinarily moving and touching, or painfully honest.
Even the lesser shows are engaging. This is one of the better police
shows I've seen in recent years.
A large amount of credit goes to the wonderful cast. This show
is really an ensemble effort, with a good sized cast of talented actors.
Actor Donnie Wahlberg does a magnificent job as detective Joel Stevens.
He really brings the character to life, instilling him with contradictions,
strengths and weaknesses. One of the interesting aspects about this
show is how Joel doesn't change over the course of the season, as much
as the viewers gets to see him in a different light. Wahlberg's acting
in the last episode of this season is nothing short of extraordinary and
worth of an award.
Mykelti Williamson who plays Fearless turned out to be my favorite character.
Williamson manages to make Fearless a large and intimidating man who has
a very vulnerable side. I always thought the show was more interesting
when he was on screen and the shows that focused on him (The Freak,
Fearless) were among my favorites.
The only real problem I had was with the writing of some aspects of
Neal McDonough's character David McNorris. In one of the early shows
they had David physically threatening a well to do business man who had
a lawyer on call. Neal is in shape, but he's not physically
threatening, and I didn't think the 'tough guy' act worked with him.
Michael Chiklis on The Shield can pull it off believably, but Neal
wasn't able to. In any case, this was a small criticism.
There were a lot of other things that I liked about the show too.
The way it was filmed, how the flashbacks started out being washed out
and faded, then would bleed to full color, and the non-linear storytelling
that kept you guessing and interested. But the thing I like the most
about this show was the main philosophy that it had: Everyone has
a story. Everyone is the star of the movie of their own life.
By letting everyone tell their story, what could have been a run of the
mill cops and robbers show turned into something unique and special.
The DVD:
This five disc set contains all 18 episodes from the first season and
comes in a book style case with pages for each DVD. It's similar
to the case that the first season of Sledge Hammer came in. I really
like this style of case for multi-DVD releases as it is easy to access
the discs and it doesn't take up a lot of shelf space. The overleafs
contain a list of episodes with a brief description and, more importantly,
which DVD the shows appear on.
Audio:
The stereo English soundtrack was very clear and crisp. There
was limited use of the front soundstage, but the directionality that was
present was very well placed. The background sounds came through
brightly and the music was full. A good sounding set of DVDs.
Video:
The widescreen anamorphically enhanced image looks great. The
details were very good and the colors were bright. Just what you
would expect from a recent show. Fans of the show will be very pleased.
Extras:
There isn't a whole lot in the way of extras in this set, but the extras
that are included are very good.
Building Boomtown is a 26 minute featurette interviewing the
creators and cast. They talk about how the feel of the show came
about, how it was filmed, and what they were trying to accomplish.
It was more than just a fluff piece and very interesting.
The other featurette included with the set is The Boomtown Shuffle.
This 17 minute long extra has interviews with the writers who discuss how
they crafted the stories and what problems they had with the unique style.
How they had to come up with a story, and then 'shuffle' the scenes to
make an interesting yet internally consistant program.
In addtion, there are commentary tracks to six different episodes in
this set:
The pilot has a alternate audio track by creator Graham Yost, director
Jon Avnet, and actor Donnoe Wahlberg (Joel.)
Episode 6, The Freak, has commentary by Graham Yost and Jon
Avnet.
Episode 14, Execution, is narrated by Graham Yost and Jon Avnet
and Larry Andries
Episode 15, Stormwatch, includes a track with Jon Avnet, Chris
Brancato, Bert Salke, and Kevin Dunigan
Episode 16, Fearless, has a track by Graham Yost, Fred Keller,
and actor Mykelti Williamson (Fearless.)
Episode 17, Blackout, features the comments of Graham Yost,
Fred Golan, and Neal McDonough.
In all of the commentary tracks they talk about the way the show was
shot, cut scenes, and their thoughts on the episode. They mention
which lines were ad libbed, and problems they may have had. (Including
how exspensive it was to have a guy fall out of the sky into a hot tub
in "The Freak.") Some of the commentaries were a little dry in spots, but
overall they were entertaining and informative. I liked Graham Yost's
comments on the car wreck in the first episode: "It's one thing to
write 'Mercedes gets hit by a truck' in a script and it's another thing
when you realize how much that costs to do."
Final Thoughts:
I really enjoyed this show. This DVD set was my first look at
Boomtown, having missed it when it was airing on TV, and I'm very
glad that I had a chance to see this show. The Rashômon-like
narrative style, engrossing stories, and wonderful acting creates a show
that is both memorable, surprising, and entertaining. A great addition
to anyone's DVD collection. Highly Recommended.
Buy: