PILOT REVIEW: Stumptown

STUMPTOWN

Starring: Cobie Smulders, Jake Johnson, Tantoo Cardinal, Cole Sibus, Adrian Martinez, with Camryn Manheim and Michael Ealy

Based on Graphic Novels by Greg Rucka, Matthew Southworth & Justin Greenwood
Created for Television by Jason Richman
Written by Jason Richman, Directed by James Griffiths

For the first time this past spring, I had the opportunity to read some of the pilot scripts. I had a grand plan to read all of them and I started with ABC but I only ever made it through the ABC scripts (it was a lot to read!) There were some scripts I liked and I was excited to see what ABC ended up picking up. That excitement turned to sadness when they ended up picking up very few shows and one they did pick up, Stumptown, was my least favorite drama pilot I read.

In practice, I would say it is only slightly better. The story of Portland private investigator, Dex Parios (Cobie Smulders) only worked to some extent thanks to a strong performance by Cobie Smulders, who did her best with mediocre material. She is giving it her all and was a healthy mix of hard-edged and cool under pressure. I'm just so tired of the "woman who is a hard-liver with a mess of a persoanl life still manages to be a killer law enforcer" trope, but that doesn't mean that Smulders wasn't doing it with gusto.

She is helped by a strong cast including a decent performance by another sitcom alum, Jake Johnson as bar owner and friend Grey McConnell. TV veterans Camryn Manheim and Michael Ealy are in the cast as well, but I didn't feel like they were used enough in the pilot. I would like to give a shout out to Cole Sibus as one of the few actors with Down Syndrome to ever be on a network drama as a regular. It's great to see representation like that! The case of the week, centered on a casino owner trying to find her granddaughter, was not that interesting and that's a death knell for me when it comes to procedural dramas. If they can't even find a compelling case for a series premiere, then what makes me think I can trust them with future episodes?

Finally, this show seems to have one of the same problems as Bluff City Law. It is set in a unique city. Of course there's Portlandia, but otherwise there's not a ton of shows set in Portland. So, why was there very little that felt unique to Portland? I think about how integral some settings have been to other dramas (the Chicago shows, Hawaii Five-0, the short-lived and wonderful Detroit 1-8-7). If you're going to make a show about Portland and name the freakin' thing Stumptown, a nickname of the city, then you better make the show really feel like it's a part of that city and not just with establishing shots at a few points in the episode. I think that is one of the biggest disappointments I have with both this and Bluff City. Maybe I wouldn't like them either way, but I'd be more apt to give them a longer leash.

WILL I WATCH IT AGAIN?
No. ABC is 0 for 2 with new dramas this year for me.