Monday, July 20, 2009

In Defence of Over-the-Top-Television Action/Crime Shows. From 2002.


So, Sarah Baby turned me on to this short-lived (22 episodes—is that "short-lived"?) Action | Crime | Thriller TV series titled Fastlane. It's a seriously cool, honestly thought-out, and downright sexy show about a couple of hot young undercover cops who pose as criminals to infiltrate and bust the toughest rings out there. At their disposal is God-only-knows-how-much-money's worth of cars, weapons, clothes, and technology to assume any legitimate persona, but at the end of the day, they solve the crime, restore their honor, and get the girl, using good old-fashioned street smarts and left hooks. And even though personalities rub wrong and emotions run high, again, at the end of the day, they are still best (reluctant) friends. Don't forget, one of them's out for vengeance for the death of his cop brother, while the other is constanly dealing with his fucked-up childhood.

It's like 21 Jump Street grew up, wanted to start shit and look good doing it. You know why? Because that's what we did. I was a kid when Jump Street came out and I was a man when Fastlane appeared. And I grew up, and I wanted to start shit and look good doing it. Sadly, I ended up looking a lot like Peter Deluise.

When I was a child, I used to speak like a man, think like a man, reason like a man; when I became a man, I did away with mannish things. A mannish boy. Spelled B...

A twist on the familiar. I hope that's ok to do. Anyway, Fastlane. It's great. There are bitchin' cars, hot girls, dreamy dudes, all dangerous, most of them (girls and dudes), fistfights, gunfights, and chase scenes resplendent with spin-outs, flips, rollovers, sinkings into the ocean after a pier dive, and most final, explosions. There's emotional warfare, physical warfare, and demonic warfare (the in-the-head kind), and there's usually some small but significant trial by fire in which one or both or all three of our main players learns they have yet another level in them they can handle.

Exactly what you always pictured the Jump Street crew graduating to after they got sick of sitting in history class. The last thing I saw Peter Facinelli in was Can't Hardly Wait, a high-school party movie, in which he plays the handsome-and-stupid dickhead ex-boyfriend of the Perfect Girl, Jennifer Love Hewitt. Bill Belamy's cousin is none other than Shaquille O'Neal for eff's sake (that is not germain to my point, but still), and Tiffany Thiessen even dropped the "Amber" 'cause she was all growds up.

Enough of this; I'm gonna watch an episode.