Chicago P.D.

It's about characters, and both "Chicago Fire" and Chicago PD are filled with them.

P.D. is as straightforward and meat-and-potatoes as police dramas get--Dick Wolf comfort food.

This one has some great characters and some heart-tugging stories. It also has a real sense of place, though I'm not sure how willing Chicagoans are going to be to claim all of it as their own.

Chicago P.D. is, in many ways, a throwback to an earlier, male-dominated era of crime shows, yet it carves out room for strong female characters who are good at their jobs and taken seriously by their colleagues--and the writers.

Chicago P.D. looks as though it’s going to walk its beat for a while.

There’s enough hardened acting chops to make Chicago PD a watchable distraction in the Dick Wolf mode. Will it end up being something consistently good? It probably depends on your definition of good.

Chicago Fire is positioned to succeed. Assuming it uses Hank to wrestle with deeper issues and not just explore all the ways his team can get dirtbags to spill, it’s got a great chance.

The well-traveled Beghe nevertheless convincingly sells the gravelly voiced tough-guy routine, and Chicago PD plays to the cathartic aspects of crime-fighting, provided one tries not to think too much about terms like “enhanced interrogation techniques.” And the show is aided by having the likes of Jon Seda, Elias Koteas and Sophia Bush on the case, even if most of the plotting has a musty and manipulative aroma.

It's not cutting-edge storytelling, but there are some decent plot threads as the show introduces its characters, including a brash desk sergeant who is either testing a rookie or simply ordering her to do her dirty work.

P.D.'s also loud--the percussive soundtrack is headache-inducing--formulaic and predictable, not at all like "The Shield."

As executed, it almost seems like a parody of the genre.... Beghe's growly, macho performance is hard to stomach, getting in the way of even noticing the attractive supporting cast.

The show is at least meta enough to have the department commander call out the sheer outrageousness of the appointment, but that doesn’t make it any more plausible.

Spinning off an established show in order to up the chances of that happening is a fine impulse, but this Chicago Fire offshoot is not quite up to the task of creating something indelible just yet.

It’s a show that’s safe, easy to digest, and predictable, which, sadly, is what audiences are coming to expect from network dramatic programming.

Unfortunately, Chicago P.D. is just that--a reminder, a breathy echo of other, much better shows. Many of which are available in affordable DVD packages and on various streaming services.

Unlike Law & Order, Chicago P.D. doesn't possess a crucial shagginess, a sense of experience and knowledge in these supposedly weary and seasoned characters that cuts through the hardened cynicism of the show's atmosphere.

The oldest trope in the TV kingdom dies hard, and in fact dies not at all on Chicago PD, the latest from "Law & Order" creator Dick Wolf, who sleepwalks through this show, or at least doesn't bother to wake up long enough to rewrite any of the rules he's established over the past 30 years.

It tries too hard to get down and dirty in the messy mire where crime happens. It just ends up messy, but without any real grit.

Designed for people who want the legal clock turned back, not just to before the Constitution, but before the Magna Carta, Chicago P.D. is an insult to Chicago, police departments and viewers alike.

Chicago PD is a bad show. The dialogue is predictable, the acting is marginal, and the plots are the swept-up leftovers from the Dick Wolf Idea Factory.