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Critic Reviews
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Throughout everything, Lopez gives a solid performance — perhaps the best dramatic work she’s done since her first-rate film, Out of Sight (1998). Liotta is excellent as well.... But Shades of Blue’s biggeset problem is this: beyond Lopez and Liotta, the rest of the cops are bland clichés (de Matteo’s marital-woes subplot is particularly trite), and as the series proceeds, Harlee’s efforts to keep her FBI-informant status a secret from her co-workers becomes very strained.
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Shades of Blue is reasonably compelling by that measure [helping lure viewers into the program’s serialized plot], and clips along smartly enough (eight episodes were made available) that the show should inspire some return business if it can generate the requisite sampling. Nevertheless, it’s too bad Blue couldn’t bring at least a few new, more colorful hues to a crime drama that paints, ultimately, with a rather familiar palette.
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Just OK, even with the first two episodes directed by the still esteemed Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Diner). This is a series that tends too often tends to drag rather than pull viewers along.
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Shades Of Blue doesn’t have the same balls that The Shield did by making the central figure a person who could do truly reprehensible things, yet still dare you to like him. But it’s not a slog to watch thanks to Lopez and Liotta.
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Lopez does a decent enough job--on top of the single-mom angle, Harlee also has a traumatic back story--but it's Liotta who will make or break Shades of Blue.
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[Lopez] lights up the screen and almost manages to carry this show over its repetitive plot hurdles. But almost is not enough.
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It's not a bad entry in the genre, although it's hardly ground-breaking. It's a twist on the genre, but not enough of a twist. It feels like umpteen other cop shows.
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Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that Shades of Blue has no shading in character or story, and is more interested in reiterating transposed views of family values than dealing with the tough and often very ugly subject matter it purports to confront.
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These cops are not even particularly good at corruption, with Harlee and her colleagues frequently making up clumsy lies that instantly fall apart, in order to cover their tracks from previous, flimsy fabrications. The subplots about the other detectives in the unit (aside from Harlee and Woz) are especially thin, and anything about the characters’ personal lives is a tedious waste of time.
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Shades of Blue moves at a brisk pace, like “Scandal” and “How to Get Away With Murder,” so that you don’t have time to think through the details. And the script is filled with bits of wit that, like ad slogans, fly by and entertain even when they’re not particularly fitting or informative.... But as the serialized plot thickens and the characters become inconsistent, the show’s flaws become unavoidable and its excesses absurd.
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If there’s any reason to watch Shades of Blue, it’s the vulnerable, effective work by Lopez, balanced by the gritty, blue-collar characterization by Liotta. They’re both great. It’s just the rest of the show that lets them down.
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It all feels very been-there-done that and likely would have been much better had it been a gutsy, raw, warts and all cable show.
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Shades of Blue is a reminder of what a strong screen presence Lopez has really always been ... but also what a fine actress she can be, shifting between strength and vulnerability with ease. The downside is that Shades of Blue is, as a whole, not a very good show.
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There are moments when Shades of Blue feels like more than the sum of its recycled parts but then there's a manipulative, tension-filled scene that tacks in just the direction a savvy viewer could predict.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 174 out of 217
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Mixed: 13 out of 217
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Negative: 30 out of 217
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Jan 8, 2016
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Jan 8, 2016
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Jan 7, 2016