APB - A Lacking Cop Show, but not without Potentialtitled Post

Post date: Mar 29, 2017 1:15:14 PM

By: Korey Alder, Media Editor

Posted March 29th, 2017

APB is a relatively new, fictional cop show on FOX, which debuted a day after the super bowl earlier this year. The show follows works of a billionaire engineer named Gideon Reeves, who, after watching his friend murdered in front of him, decided that he could improve the state of the Chicago Police Department. Reeves convinces the mayor of Chicago to give him control of the thirteenth district, and using large amounts of his own money, he upgrades the department to the latest and greatest technology.

The premise is unique, and Reeves’ character, falling somewhere between Tony Stark and Elon Musk in personality, is humorous and engaging. The show is fast-paced and fairly suspenseful, and for a TV show, the special effects and animation are reasonable. The intended focus of the show is obviously the high-tech gadgets that Reeves and his associates employ to catch criminals, such as drones, sports cars (apparently Cadillac paid for some product placement), and sidearms that fire miniature tasers.

Unfortunately, APB suffers from a few faults, in its current state. While the technology used by the thirteenth district is what makes the show entertaining, almost none of it has any basis in reality. To be fair, this is an affliction of many modern action films and shows; despite much criticism, “zoom-and-enhance” and other nonsensical filler are used to progress the story, but require a suspension of disbelief which over time becomes annoying. While APB strives to be more realistic than many concurrent shows, devices like material composition scanners and laser holograms make the show feel implausible for something apparently set in current times. In addition, many of the side characters feel underdeveloped and shallow. The occasional piece of dialogue will hint about a character’s past, but not in a way that makes the viewer wish to know more. They are simply there, as if to progress the story and nothing more. These problems, coupled with relatively uncreative plots, and the writers’ insistence on including, but not in any way exploring, controversial contemporary issues, leaves APB feeling half baked.

From the first episode, it looked as if APB was going to turn out to be the child of Iron Man and Miami Vice (an interesting pair to be sure), but sadly, a handful of flaws keeps it from being the great TV show. If I were forced to give APB a rating, I would be hard-pressed to grant it more than 2 ½ of 5 stars – though I hope that in coming episodes and season they can turn things around.