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Critic Reviews
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It's the kind of work that I like to classify as "deep shallow," in that it deals in familiar tropes and simple themes but articulates them in a clever, stylish way.
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The answers unfold with a delicious tension that makes Graceland an unexpected pleasure.
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We've seen that countless times. But Sunjata and Tveit are both appealing, and the rest of the cast is colorfully eclectic, including Vanessa Ferlito as Charlie, a DEA agent undercover as a druggie.
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It’s the broader story of Briggs--is his hat white or black?--and his unfolding relationship Warren that elevates Graceland a cut above your dime-a-dozen crime dramas.
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Based on the three episodes I've seen, there's a lot of potential here, and an interesting blend of self-contained and long-form storytelling.
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It wouldn't hurt to pick up the pace, but Graceland is a successful move toward true grittiness. [3 Jun 2013, p.43]
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Graceland is Not The Wire. But it won't have you shooting up your television set, either. [31 May/7 Jun 2013, p.131]
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While it's not exactly Breaking Bad, stepping away from the too-pat world of "blue sky" TV into something edgier is a welcome diversion.
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Graceland is an entertaining addition to a strong summer lineup in which attractive people trade witty banter and engage in serious work that provides good clean episodic fun while teaching the main characters the importance of love and loyalty.
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At first, the pace is slow--make that glacial--but [the] pilot episode (and especially Sunjata) are good-natured enough to make you want to stick around to see if this gels into anything approaching an FX drama (it does not).
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Based on the few, non-consecutive episodes I've seen, it does seem willing, though, to pose some hard questions, including whether it's reasonable to expect that the people we pay to lie down with dogs won't ever wake up with fleas. Or worse.
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Many of the opening episodes blend, particularly when the cases hover in the same ball park. When it strays, we learn a bit more about the relationships established before Warren stepped in. That interests. The cases? Not so much.
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The connection of Graceland to real-life events doesn't much matter. It feels promising as television, and several characters besides Warren and Briggs--including a DEA agent played by Serinda Swan, switching sides after “Breakout Kings”--have the potential to make us care about their stories.
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The show may not hold the attention of TV fans who crave complex storytelling--there's not much for fans of psychologically intriguing character development to dig into--but for viewers who enjoy a steady USA diet, Graceland may darken the network's Blue Sky programming approach just enough to intrigue.
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Graceland is nothing to get all shook up about.
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[Graceland] is barely distinguishable from USA Network's long roster of crime capers featuring pretty people in gorgeous settings.
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As the show moves past the setup and into its first caper, the extended introductory episode does improve. And then it hits a final twist that would be tiresome even if you believed Graceland was equipped to explore it properly. Had Elvis ever actually entered the building, this would be the point where he left. Follow suit.
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Sunjata is talented and charismatic.... He deserves a show that will cement his status as a leading man. This isn’t it. Tveit buckles under the script shifts, in one scene a dweeb, in the next, a canny agent.
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There’s a bit of a plot swerve at the end of the episode.... [which] suggests that with time, Graceland might venture into some ambiguous territory. Right now, it’s looking as stuck in the past as Elvis’ estate.
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While everything here is reasonably compatible with lead-in “Burn Notice,” the few high notes ultimately can’t disguise how ordinary a visit to Graceland feels.
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Tveit is kind of an underwhelming Officer Opie here, while Sunjata brings a menacingly ambivalent character to life.
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The series needs to work more on the writing and less on the lighting to make these particular characters welcome week after week.
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The show's primary appeal is its "Bay Watch"-like eye candy, but the performances are decent and the scripts occasionally poke their little heads above mediocrity with clever dialogue.
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As well-engineered, demographically balanced and ethnically diverse as this show is, it’s still pretty daffy how it cuts back and forth between sun and fun and drug wastoids and gangstas.
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A new, trite and pretty awful scripted formulaic cop show.
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Government agents loll around the beach, exchanging the kind of banter for which television writers would, in a just world, be sent to some quiet place to reflect on their idiocy. All this, amid the plotting of incoherent designs to trap drug dealers, and plenty of sand and dazzling blue skies--elements that have on occasion succeeded in mitigating the flaws of some deadly TV series. This deadly series isn't one of them.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 50 out of 73
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Mixed: 12 out of 73
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Negative: 11 out of 73
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Jun 6, 2013
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Feb 18, 2014
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Dec 21, 2013