Stalker Season 1 Premiere Review!!

Synopsis – A pair of detectives investigate stalkers in Los Angeles.

Episode – S01E01″Pilot”

My Take – This is one of the newest additions in police dramas for 2014. It is about a fictional police unit who deals with stalkers and their victims (who knew this had become such major issue). Now before I talk more about the premiere, let me warn you, their are potential spoilers ahead!

Where the show diverges from a normal police procedural is in exploring personal habits of each protagonist which evoke behaviours of the people they deal with on cases. New York Detective Jack Larsen (Dylan McDermott) relocates to Los Angeles and joins a special squad led by icy Detective Beth Davis (Maggie Q) which investigates serious cases of stalking. The two don’t exactly hit it off but quickly come to respect each other’s expertise in hunting stalkers. Larsen is stalking his ex Amanda (Elisabeth Rohm) and her son which he believes to be his. This is the reason for his transfer from one coast to another. He has followed the woman and her child to Los Angeles but has, for obvious, concealed his true motives to the police department and his new partner Davis. Davis is less overt with Larsen and with the audience but it seems pretty clear she was the victim of a stalker. Her victimization has had the effect of giving her empathy with victims of such crime whilst also giving her darker impulses the motive to victimize stalkers by means both legal and illegal. Unlike most network shows we have edgier heroes in this series which make it more like a cable show – audiences of which network TV is struggling to win back.

I already hate Dylan McDermott’s character, He’s supposed to be part of the stalker squad but he’s stalking his ex-lover because he thinks her child is his. There are plenty of legal things he could do to see his son, stalking is not the answer given what he does for a living. Between that and his characterization, he doesn’t (to me) have a whole lot of redeeming qualities. LOL!! I have been of Maggie Q (Die Hard 4, Mission Impossible 3) since her CW’s Nikita days. I am glad to see her again. My problem has to do with the writers. She supposedly has been stalked before herself, and yet she lives in a home with see-through curtains; waits to close the curtains the first time we see her in her house until after she’s gotten ready for bed; the window locks are child’s play and the chain on the door is an absolute joke like seriously? Over all the show is one I’m willing to give at least another episode or two. Handled right, it could be the next Criminal Minds – but Dylan’s character has to be overhauled or killed off or something!