ABC is trying something different with its latest primetime series.
Following a slew of female-led dramas in recent years (Alaska Daily, Queens, Big Sky, Stumptown, High Potential, The Catch, Quantico, How to Get Away with Murder, and Scandal, to name but a few) the Network is finally letting the boys have a go.
RJ Decker is a breezy crime procedural starring Scott Speedman in the title role as a disgraced photojournalist and ex-con who now takes on cases as a Florida P.I. The series is adapted by Rob Doherty of Elementary fame from the novel Double Whammy by Carl Hiaasen.
The vibe is a little bit Magnum P.I. (there are a lot of people who seem to be perpetually irritated by Decker’s presence) and a little bit The Rockford Files (Decker is a loveable rogue who doesn’t allow being perpetually down on his luck to put him off the scent. Co-incidentally, NBC is prepping something similar with the David Boreanaz-led Rockford Files reboot coming to your Primetime slate next TV season.)
The show really wants to push the informational nugget that Decker is an ex-Con. In fact, every scene in the pilot episode is initiated by someone announcing this fact, or Decker leading his various introductions with it. Decker may be an ex-Con, but, we learn, the incident that led to his incarceration was not entirely his fault, and driven by grief and some PTSD over the murder of his journalist friend. So he’s that sort of ex-Con.
Two years in prison have not dulled Decker’s memory of events, and we soon learn he’s pretty determined to put the man responsible for his colleague’s death behind bars. Thankfully, the murderer strikes again in a crime that bears a striking set of similarities to the the original, which in turn leads to a series of clues and revelations that Decker solves easily before finally getting his man before the credits roll.
When Decker isn’t brooding about miscarriages of justice, or hanging out in his overturned mobile home which literally slips into a sinkhole in the premiere episode, he’s leaning on his friends, ex-wife, her new wife, and a dangerous and sexy acquaintance for an assist with his investigations.
These friends and colleagues come in the form of Decker’s journalist ex-wife Catherine (Adelaide Clemens), her new police detective wife Mel (Bevin Bru), local bar Owner and ‘Florida Man’ meme collector ‘Wish’ Aiken (Kevin Rankin), and femme-fatal, Senator’s niece, and thorn in Decker’s side, Emi (Jaina Lee Ortiz).
The supporting cast is well rounded, and the characters feel lived in and interesting for the most part. How they each react to Decker’s presence (Wish with delight, Catherine with warmth, Mel with grudging acceptance) helps us get a bead on our main character’s goodness, and fills in any niggling backstory blanks in the premiere episode — which is handy, because the hour gallops along, dropping exposition, characters, crimes and clue-solving at such breakneck speed that some scenes feature Decker, after the fact, explaining to other characters (and the audience) how he got to this point in the investigation. Whatever happened to show don’t tell?
However, while the show itself feels light and breezy and dangles the prospect of a series of odd to outright bizarre investigations in “the colorful-crime-filled world of South Florida” (the Network’s description), I can’t help but feel Speedman’s Decker could be a couple of degrees sleazier, and still work. Maybe even work better? That feeling is only exacerbated by the knowledge there’s another Carl Hiaasen book-to-TV adaptation floating around out there that nails the necessary tone that ought to follow a down-and-out PI scrounging for clues in the city’s dirtiest corners like a bad smell. (It’s the Vince Vaughn and Natalie Martinez-starring black comedy Bad Monkey over on Apple TV, in case you were wondering.)
Decker’s flip-flops, Hawaiian shirt, and overgrown stubble suggest a man in his element among the denizens of the city’s underbelly. His old work colleagues and even the local police grit their teeth and roll their eyes when they see him coming, but Speedman seems intent on playing it straight. His heroic determination to see justice served, and his periods of dark introspection feel off-kilter for certain scenes, and occasionally push the show into territory that feels neither comedic nor dramatic, but a strange no-man’s land in between.
ABC has had grand success with High Potential, another semi-comedic crime procedural with a quirky and colorful lead in Kaitlin Olson. RJ Decker is cut, roughly at least, from the same cloth. Moving forward, the show will no doubt rely on the chemistry of its ensemble and the sheer weirdness of its weekly cases to keep viewers coming back. If Speedman can lean further into the sleaze and let the character’s ragged edges show through, he might just find the spark that turned The Rockford Files into a legend. Unless NBC gets there first, of course.
As it stands, R.J. Decker is a pleasant enough vacation to the Everglades. It’s breezy, it’s bright, and it’s unapologetically old-school. Just don’t be surprised if, by the third commercial break, someone reminds you one more time that he’s an ex-Con.
RJ Decker airs Tuesdays, from 10 to 11 PM on ABC.
