The Rookie

This feels like an ensemble with real potential. [19/26 Oct 2018, p.85]

What really makes The Rookie interesting is watching Fillion maneuver among all these sharp elbows while balancing the shortage of adrenaline with the bonus supply of experience that both come with middle age. He does it all with the same let's-have-a-beer amiability he's displayed in shows as diverse as Firefly and Castle. He'll make you forget Kate Jackson is missing.

We have this very likable cop show about a guy, John Nolan, who hits the mid-life reset button and decides to become a cop.

The Rookie’s action scenes are capably staged in a pilot episode that’s also brisk and well cast beyond the built-in marquee appeal of Fillion. But the lead character’s back story is barely touched on. And Nolan’s training to become a cop is completely omitted in the rush to get him out on the streets and imperiled.

If anyone but Fillion tossed out a line so smothered in schmaltz, you'd either laugh or groan. But Mr. Likable nails it and largely nails this comfy, corny and (yup) likable pilot, too.

Fillion’s strengths are key, because despite the show’s best efforts to drape multiple dramatic storylines around him in the one episode ABC made available to review, there’s just not a lot that stands out otherwise. ... It’s a breezy drama that doesn’t demand much from the viewer, but Fillion’s easy charm is tough to dismiss.

There’s enough parity in the group to keep viewers engaged, be it from their slew of emergencies (like a crazy man screaming about unicorns on top of his car) or testy inter-personal dynamics. Even after the ridiculous opening scene, Fillion manages to fill Nolan with enough foolish sincerity to be a believable human being.

Fillion is vulnerable and appealing, and he has welcome help from Richard T. Jones as his tough-as-nails boss. But The Rookie seems destined to test the limits of that charm, in a show where the shaky imagery can't obscure that we've seen every beat here before.

The series tries, with limited success, to be both a star vehicle for Fillion and also an ensemble. It doesn't pay off in the pilot, creating too many characters and too many plotlines for a rhythm to ever get properly established.

Rookie is full of familiar cop-show types and tropes. But instead of murder-solving detectives, it's on the fast-paced beat of uniformed officers.