Spin off and die

In my head, Fringe is a Dawson’s Creek spin off. Pacey left the Creek to work for the FBI. Bones is an Angel spin off. Angel quit being a vampire (he probably regrets that because they are so “hot” right now) to work for the FBI. Cougar Town is a Friends spin off, where Monica leaves Chandler to work for the FBI (I don’t know, I’ve never seen it).

I stumbled upon a new spin off this week, Southland, where Ryan Atwood of O.C fame becomes a cop. He’s changed his name to Ben Sherman (you can make that shit up apparently) but I know it’s Ryan, I can see that seething from a mile away. If you haven’t seen Southland, then don’t bother. Now I’ve only seen the very first episode, and I’ve been wrong to judge on pilots before, but this show was terrible.

Well, it wasn’t terrible. It was ok, and that’s the problem. The pilot was structured like a cross between The Wire and Training Day, but not being nearly as good as either. If you are going to make a gritty cop drama like The Wire, then it needs to be better than The Wire, otherwise you will be thinking “man I want to watch The Wire” all the way through - which I did.

I suppose the acting was sound, but none of the characters were at all interesting, and just regurgitations from previous cop dramas. Yeah, they’re all bastards except for a few who are alright I guess. People will probably rave about how intelligent Southland is because it shows that being a cop isn’t at all like Starsky and Hutch and it’s actually pretty nasty, but that doesn’t always make for an entertaining show.

I was quite disappointed, I thought Ryan, I mean Ben, might have had a fight with a jock at a beach party, but he just threw up a little, probably as a result of all that seething. Also, if you are going to have an ultra serious drama, don’t make a reference to Ben Mackenzie being in The O.C, because if you joke about it, it makes us remember that he was Ryan Atwood and he’s not actually a cop in this “very real” drama.

I guess for now I just have to wait for future spin offs to emerge. Perhaps we’ll see Zach Braff in a new show soon. J.D solves crimes in his spare time (a bit like Dick Van Dyke) by using his special skill, falling over amusingly. Or Kim Catrall gets a job for the FBI, extracting information out of suspects by fucking them.