Battle Creek

The last episode is not really a finale but it does clear up the main question everyone was wondering all along. At least it won't leave you mad like some one season shows. I watched one a while back that ended with a cop facing an impossible moral decision and the screen goes to black and you hear a gun shot.

I always liked Dean Winters with his wise cracking attitude and he was the best thing about this show. It is worth the time to watch. They don't overdo the comedy angle. It's not a comedy show about cops; it's a cop show with some pretty funny moments at times. It also limits the blood and gore to fairly brief shots.

There are so many networks producing original programming that even decent shows like this one gets pulled at the first sign of a ratings drop. In the days when there were just 3 and 4 networks they would consider the quality of the program before canceling. A lot of the greatest classic series had poor ratings in the beginning. Now they think a season is 13 or even 10 episodes. They will kill the show without even airing episodes they have already taped. Or else they burn them off Saturday evening two at a time when most other channels are showing sports.

I have seen other cop shows about the same quality last several years. Too many series that have real potential like this are not given a chance.

The pilot shows a lot of promise. There are 2 likable leads and a good mix of unexpected comedy. A big city FBI agent played by Josh Duhamel who seems to do all the right things, joins a small town Michigan police department and partners with a slightly down trodden bitter detective there (Dean Winters). Sweet looking Aubrey Dollar has a supporting role. Janet McTeer seems a little out of place as Chief. It's funny to see the FBI technology and advances versus small town cop methods.

A couple of Breaking Bad references Vince Gilligan fans will notice. It feels more procedural and less intense.

Worth watching. High quality television.

I just finished watching all of the far, far, far too few episodes of Battle Creek. I don't bother to write many reviews on things, but in this case I decided that I should alert people to how good this series actually was.

Don't be put off by the fact that it only was around for one season: Battle Creek is excellent. In fact, it is just about as good as I have ever seen TV get.

Great premise, great writing, great characters, great acting. Did I mention it was hilarious too?

What an terrible shame this show didn't get more than the all-too brief run it did.

Unfortunately, I didn't see it on TV: Instead I watched the series on Netflix. I say that is unfortunate because I would have made a point of watching this, even on regular TV with commercials. One of those shows that I would have happily supported.

Longmire and The Killing had some extra episodes done by Netflix after they got cancelled on regular network TV. I hope that the same happens to Battle Creek.

I highly, highly recommend watching Battle Creek.

This show feels a lot more like "Castle" than like "Breaking Bad," and just about anyone who has watched "Castle" should recognize its formula by now. Rather than slow developments designed to build lots of tension, this show has so many twists and turns of plot in one episode, that you may not even have time to think much about what is happening. So there is very little tension in it because everything goes by fast, and over all, that makes for very light viewing. Moreover, despite its setting and some of its characters, its grittiness is mild, and instead of the boundary-pushing edginess of "Breaking Bad," it has moments when it is even a bit campy. Yet the quality of the stories and the acting are pretty good, probably better than we had with "Castle." And in sum, it is kind of like television's equivalent to comfort food: Not challenging, but easy and familiar.

"Battle Creek" is a new show starring Josh Duhamel and Dean Winters. Duhamel plays an FBI agent who becomes part of a police department in Battle Creek, Michigan, where the methods are a little old-fashioned. His bitter partner (Winters) resents Duhamel's perfection and popularity with the ladies.

So far the plots have been very imaginative and funny. In the first show, a baby monitor had to be used to pick up a conversation. In the second, the guys went after a maple syrup cartel after someone drowned in maple syrup. Discussing the sting operation, one of the guys said, "I'll get a bottle of Log Cabin. We can use those as tasting samplers and then just deliver water." When they deliver the syrup (which Duhamel insists be pure and the best on the market), the tasting -- using a crepe - was like a scene out of Breaking Bad, except with syrup instead of meth.

As far as this show taking place in Battle Creek, if a show took place in my home town and wasn't filmed there, I'd be unhappy too; also, it's presented as a back woods place, which I'm sure isn't true. Hollywood does this all the time -- Boston Legal, Provincetown - and it's just to make the locale different from L.A. or NY. Meanwhile, there's no indication at all that the characters really live and work in that city.

I hope it lasts. A nice cast, including Janet McTeer and Aubrey Dollar.