This week was swallowed whole by Prodigal Son, a 2019 TV series starring Tom Payne in theory and Michael Sheen in practice. With the former ‘working with the police’ and the latter his father and a serial killer. Thus Payne becomes the titular Prodigal Son, not working in the family business, working directly against everything his father stands for (murdering innocent people).

Sheen is having a wonderful time being jovially evil. He’s locked up in a flashy cell, with a persian rug, fancy books and less fancy furniture. Sheen is begrudgingly helping Payne catch killers, it in part for the intellectual challenge but mainly because it means he gets to spend time with his son. He’s the best part of the show. Gleaming, scheming and delightfully manipulative. He’s aware of the comic book batman villain role he’s been given, while the rest of the cast isn’t.

From there, we’ve got characters from every other cop show archetype. Halston Sage plays Payne’s sister, a hungry news reporter who’s always getting in his way. Bellamy Young plays his milf mom, a rich heiress who’s always getting herself tangled up in his cases and getting in his way. Lou Diamond Phillips is the boss of his work family, a father figure to Payne, and by the books cop through and though, he’s against Payne’s antics and is always getting in his way. Keiko Agena plays a medical examiner with more than a little crush on Payne, she’s quirky, weird and always throwing herself at him or getting in his way; she literally runs into him multiple times it’s a bit weird.

There’s 3 or 4 more I could profile, every episode all of them have to have some kinda insight, some quirk or idea. Which leads to these ridicules contrivances; Payne dates a women who turns out to be the sister of a women his dad was going to kill (known as ‘The Girl in the Box’) but didn’t because she had blackmail material on another, eviler guy. Then in the present the other guy is dating Payne’s mum. Then that guy is killed by Payne’s sister, because of the blackmail material that they don’t actually have. It’s all very soap opera, and despite all the murder, surprisingly gentle. You’d think it was what was getting in the way, but really it’s the cop stuff, because that part isn’t very interesting.

It’s generally very entertaining, the place it goes wrong is when it tries to be serious. Any cop show is about bad things happening to ordinary people, that’s inherent to the format. But when it’s mixed with the light drama and mild peril of this wacky serial killer’s life, it gives you whiplash. The worst day of someone’s life is sidelined when meddling mother arrives, complaining about what NYC high society will say. Murder is often the punchline or is just entirely sidelined for the more import, more real problem of this family’s bickering. It’s also weird because the family stuff is inherently more interesting. CSI, Law & Order and the rest have done so much, that the smaller world of the show is the new stuff you’ve not seen in this context so it’s entertaining. But it leaves bingeing the show a slightly uncomfortable prospect, because every episode begins with just the most generic, unappealing murder show garbage. You’re always waiting for the Michael Sheen, or another ancillary character, to arrive for the fun to start. It’s a coin flip too, sometimes it’s just CSI with extra steps and less good.

Prodigal Son also has a very small box of tricks, each episode has at least one dream sequence and one flashback, where the actors look exactly the same despite them being around 25 years in the past. Lots of screen writing 101 stuff in here, using what they have and I can appreciate that, but it would help if they had chill: there is none to be found. Everything set up is immediately payed off, there are points where they flashback mid scene to make it Very Clear that characters are Experiencing Emotions. It is quite trite.

The crowd of characters leaves space for maybe one person from the victims personal life, so they either did it, or a character you’ve never met or expected appears. There’s not the mystery vibe from more generic shows. I think they were going for the vibe of the 2013 Hannibal show, but with the sexual tension stripped right out (small miracles). It’s meant to be Payne and Sheen mentally sparring, but their relationship doesn’t have the required chemistry. They seem like established friends rather than twisted father and son or predator and prey.

This has got me thinking a lot about the non-badged police investigator, Sherlock Holmes/Miss Marple type. The way these detectives have just become part of the media landscape, without being a remotely real thing is interesting. Maybe writers need a purity from their detectives, for them not to kick down the doors or be holding the guns. It has to be an intellectual pursuit, a puzzle rather than a crime. It seems like a trope increasingly at odds with modern cops in these shows, they’re so hyper competent, their star assistants needed only for near magical jumps in logic. There aren’t moments of police incompetence or fragility in Prodigal Son, at least not from the core team. They’re busy being sassy and diverse! Portrayal of the police as flawed being largely sacrorilge. There are Bad Cops, the show has a little Black Lives Matter moment with one of the detectives being persecuted, but it’s very much a minor self-conscious distraction from all the Good Cop stuff.

Prodigal Son’s morals are mixed, serial killers are evil unless they’re Michael Sheen, cops are miraculously perfect, but need help from an external contractor and the drama is in the murder, until there’s a minor family drama. There’s all the bits and pieces of something great, but it’s too preoccupied by being everything to be anything at all.