Fox's Lethal Weapon

Generally small screen crime dramas are far more cerebral than their ancestors from the 1970's heyday of TV crime shows - that's not the case with Fox's Lethal Weapon which owes as much to TV's Starskey and Hutch as it does to the movie franchise from which it takes its name and central characters. That's not such a bad thing and the show offers a welcome antidote to the grim and gritty milieu which has become the norm with the genre. The likes of True Detective, the first season at least, may have offered compelling viewing with its mix of great writing and understated acting but sometimes it is nice to put your brain in neutral and watch TV for the sheer spectacle itself.

Lethal Weapon then is in no way realistic but then it doesn't intend to be and certainly doesn't need to be. With a title like Lethal Weapon viewers are not expecting another True Detective but rather a return to the buddy/buddy genre and all the elaborate explosions, car chases and fist fights that entails. And on this score the Lethal Weapon series certainly delivers.

So far I've seen three episodes of the first season and after a piss poor pilot episode which basically revamped the plot of the first movie but with far less class, the show looks like it is finding its feet. Of course it is haunted by the ghosts of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, not to mention Joe Pesci, but when you get over the fact that this is a new Lethal Weapon with new lead actors then the show starts to make some kind of sense.

The jury is still out on this one and although the show is ridiculous I did enjoy the second episode far more than the pilot and the third episode was pretty solid, if a little daft. There's a genuine chemistry between the two leads which if allowed to develop may even match that displayed by Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, and the secondary cast provide solid support to the mismatched cops.

How do I rate this show then? Well, it's a little early to say but I will be sticking with it for a few more episodes yet.

NEWS - LETHAL WEAPON marked FOX’s highest fall premiere in two years, with a 3.2/12 Live + 7 rating among Adults 18-49 and 12.4 million viewers across all platforms to date, propelling FOX Wednesday to be premiere week’s highest-rated night of entertainment programming.  It is the No. 3 new drama this season (tied with “Bull”), with a 3.0/11 in Live + 7 among Adults 18-49 and the average multi-platform audience for the show is 11.5 million viewers in Live + 7.