'Wicked City': Same old same old, with flashes of promise
Judged from the first half alone, the pilot for ABC's new procedural Wicked City is an utter disaster - a derivative, offensive serial-killer yarn set along L.A.'s Sunset Strip during that most slasher-happy of decades, the 1980s.
/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-pmn.s3.amazonaws.com/public/HDM46Y2EYFADDADB5ZJMCNZPHY.jpg)
Judged from the first half alone, the pilot for ABC's new procedural Wicked City is an utter disaster - a derivative, offensive serial-killer yarn set along L.A.'s Sunset Strip during that most slasher-happy of decades, the 1980s.
Yet, somewhere in the cigarette haze and the wall-to-wall Billy Idol, Foreigner, and Joan Jett tunes, there's a promise the show may deliver something interesting, complex, even compelling.
It's just a hint, mind you, and ABC's unwillingness to release anything beyond the pilot makes it impossible to judge whether the drama will sink or soar.
Wicked City is cut from the same cloth as Hannibal and Aquarius: Instead of telling the story from the cops' point of view, it tries to put us inside the killer's mind, not to mention his den, his bedroom, and his kitchen. And it asks a compelling question: What if a vicious serial killer were to fall madly, truly, wholeheartedly in love?
Wicked City has all the stereotypical ingredients: Ed Westwick (Gossip Girl) stars as Kent Grainger, a charming guy with matinee-idol looks who picks up girls and knifes them.
Jeremy Sisto is Jack Roth, an experienced cop who is appropriately dark and tortured, but who still manages to sleep with two gorgeous women (Anne Winters and Karolina Wydra). He's paired up with Paco Contrera (Gabriel Luna), a flashy, overly ambitious publicity hog. They hate each other.
Then there are the potential victims. Taissa Farmiga is a would-be Rolling Stone reporter lost in the club scene and Erika Christensen a nurse and single mom who is looking for true love in all the wrong places.
Christensen is fascinating as Betty. She refuses to kill a spider her kids find in the living room.
"Remember what we say?" she asks them.
"Do no harm," the kids say in unison. Yet when Betty takes the spider outside, she crushes it with a certain devilish jouissance.
Kent sees something in her, and, instead of killing her, he asks her on a second date, telling her he wants to teach her what really turns him on.
Wicked City probably is a tired genre piece. (How's that for critical certitude?) But it's just possible that in future episodes, the flirtation between Kent and Betty may yield worthwhile television.
215-854-2736
TV REVIEW
StartText
Wicked City
Premieres at 10 p.m. Tuesday on 6ABC.
EndText