EZ Streets

The cast here is a standout, down to the smallest parts. ... And this production is super-slick, from camera work to moody musical score. The script is sharply cutting edge. The step is relentlessly slow, with violence as the pace-breaker. [27 Oct 1996]

You have to work to watch this show. Characters and plotlines whiz by in a blur, and if you blink, you may miss an entire subplot. But the payoff is more than worth the effort: With its deep characterizations, dark humor, unpredictable plots and brilliant musical score, "EZ Streets" is fascinating television, unlike almost anything else now on the air. [27 Oct 1996]

[A] brilliant, layered cops-and-robbers series -- the best since NYPD Blue. [27 Oct 1996]

Stylishly produced, with haunting music, darkly diffused lighting and some surprising violence and raw street language, "EZ Streets" has loads of bite and texture. Based on Sunday night's two-hour preview episode, it has the potential to be one of the new season's best dramas. [27 Oct 1996]

The "EZ" dialogue is terse, suggestive, pointed and often ambiguous. The complicated "Streets" story deals with issues of truth, honor, justice, vengeance and loyalty. Its stark moral conflicts, set in a shady criminal underworld, deserve positive comparisons to "On the Waterfront," "Serpico," "Where the Sidewalk Ends" and the first year of "Wiseguy." [25 Oct 1996]

Haunting and riveting. [25 Oct 1996]

A rich, risky and satisfying adult drama that could be the next "Wiseguy" - and there isn't much higher praise. [26 Oct 1996]

A brooding, brilliantly written and crafted cop show. [25 Oct 1996]

An instant classic.

"EZ Streets" has great ensemble acting from a formidable cast. It has an attractive balance of conflict and humor. And it's that uncommon cop show that makes the bad guys more than cutout caricatures. [25 Oct 1996]

The series doesn't have a plot so much as a beautifully tangled web of deception, cruelty, and faded hopes. ... There are times when EZ Streets seems like the world's longest Bruce Springsteen video.

A fascinating and challenging new drama series. [27 Oct 1996]

It is ambitious, evocative television with next to no hit potential. [24 Oct 1996]

There isn't a scene in the two-hour pilot of Paul Haggis' crime drama EZ Streets that hasn't been done in movies, but perhaps because EZ Streets is on television... its cinematic brio feels unconventional, even startling.

The best new drama of the season, the only one of the 44 new shows that could join "Law & Order," "Homicide," "NYPD Blue," "Murder One" in the pantheon of quality shows. [11 Oct 1996]

EZ Streets sustains a mood of despair unlike any other drama on television. ... And yet, for all its solemnity, EZ Streets somehow manages to avoid melodrama.

Dense, dark and disturbing, the new crime drama requires that attention - total attention - be paid to a bunch of unsavory characters. Many viewers will deem it an offer they can refuse. Yet patience pays major rewards, for EZ Streets holds surprising fascination. [27 Oct 1996]

There is some room for debate as to whether it is the best or only the second best new drama of the season, but there is no doubt it is the most daring. [26 Oct 1996]

"EZ Streets" may sound depressing, but its fiercely dark vision keeps viewers off-kilter and engaged and makes this one of the season's most exciting new series. [26 Oct 1996]

An ambitiously moody exploration of moral ambiguity. [27 Oct 1996]

It's sometimes lyrical, other times cruel, provocatively adult and often profane. The downside: a suffocating ambiguity that may smother its hopes for commercial success. [25 Oct 1996]

While the performances are first-rate, "EZ Streets" is a tad too in love with itself, and at least for the first two hours, it never shakes free of its pretentiousness. [26 Oct 1996]

Olin is fine as undercover cop Cameron Quinn, as is Jason Gedrick... as recent parolee Danny Rooney... But everything else in this two-hour opener falls hard, from the artificial conflicts that serve the script, but not logic, to the merciless bloating during which nothing happens but mood music, to the needless violence and softening of homicide with clumsy humor. These cadences don't come close to harmonizing.