|
It's
a good watchable-enough drama. However it's probably not something
that will go down as a special piece of TV. The central
performance from Denis Leary is adequate but never riveting.
In
some ways the "ghost" thing gets in the way as we are never
quite sure if the dead people he sees are in some way "real"
ghosts (in the fictional sense) or if it's completely in his head.
Sometimes it seems one and at other times you wonder. But you do
get a sense that the makers included this to give the series a
"gimmick" and make it seem a bit different and now they're
stuck with having to use it. The dead cousin "ghost" is
one of the regulars in the series so has to be used every episode but
adds very little of value. In later episodes the ghost thing gets
side-lined as if they realised it was getting in the way of the realism.
The
story progresses episode to episode and the quality is fairly consistent
throughout but because of this there is no stand-out episode.
It
is not an action series and is probably best considered as a soap opera
where the characters happen to work as firemen - the stories never
revolve around the rescues and when they are seen working these are
usually just "routine" calls. The drama mainly seems to
be about the love lives of the men and their station banter. In
the latter few episodes they get a female fire-fighter joining them
which livens things up a bit as they rally against her to try and
squeeze out someone they consider "weak".
Overall,
it's an average sort of series which is maybe not what you might expect
in a series about firemen - there is no set-piece excitement. It
has some good points and some reasonably interesting characters -
possibly it wears a bit thin by the end of 13 episodes when it doesn't
really seem to be doing much but treading water. Maybe it's
something better viewed in weekly instalments rather than in prolonged
multiple doses. Each episode is about 41-43 mins long.
ANY
SPECIAL FEATURES?
Episodes
1 (pilot) and 13 (final) have commentary tracks by Denis Leary and Peter
Tolan who are the creators and head writer/head director respectively -
as well as Leary being lead actor of course.
Other
extra are spread across disks 1 and 2 (of the four) and include a Gag
Reel (7 mins), and documentary background features:- How It All Began
(13), Authenticity (17), The Cast (16) The Look (10) and finally some
deleted scenes.
|
