Some thoughts on "Don't Kill the Messenger," the February 24 episode of NYPD Blue, preceded, as usual, by a quick synopsis: ---------------------------------------------------- A mental patient confesses to a murder Andy and Bobby are working, but a patrolman in the precinct is a more likely suspect; a soda can comes in handy when Greg and Jill investigate the death of a bike messenger who tried to disrupt a drug robbery; Andy's not happy to receive a houe call from his doctor at The House, especially since his medical problems are much worse than anyone suspects ----------------------------------------------------- These days, an episode like "Don't Kill the Messenger" is a much more pleasant surprise to me than a "Weaver of Hate." For all the problems of the show in the past few seasons, David Milch and his merry band have shown the ability to knock the occasional episode out of the park. The problem has largely come from the episodes that take place between the epics, which generally range from the competently mediocre to the downright dull. So to see a meat-and-potatoes episode keep me engrossed and entertained from start to finish without relying on any major hot-button issues -- racism, child murders, a loved one of a castmember dying, etc. -- was a treat. In a lot of ways, I think it's easier to do a solid episode with big things brewing; generating interest solely out of the casework after four and a half years is a more impressive feat. (I don't count Andy's prostate difficulties, as I think the show would work well even without that thread.) I have to confess that no small part of my enjoyment comes from little fanboy touches. Perennial perp babysitters Hank and Josh participate in a bust! Andy drinks his coffee out of a "James Martinez for squad delegate: honest, hardworking and interested" mug! But I don't think that's the main reason I liked it so much. I rail a lot against the formula that Milch uses for most episodes, not so much because it's repetitive, but because it robs the stories of freshness. You know that Andy and Bobby will zip through the crime scene before the opening credits; that after a few witness interviews prove less-than-fruitful, someone will come into the precinct and offer a new lead; etc., on to the solicitation of a confession around five minutes before the closing blackout. For all the show's painstaking efforts to create verisimilitude, the formula keeps intruding to remind us it's just a TV show. And what I liked about the two cases here is that they seemed to proceed at their own pace, independent of the usual rulebook. Yes, there were a lot of the usual elements, but there was also time for brief detours like Andy's discussion of the theater and Greg's anti-smoking bit in the car. There was also the way the show seemed to run out of time before Andy and Bobby's case could be included. I don't expect to see it picked up next week (haven't read the TV Guide blurb, and will try to avoid it), nor would I want it to. We've already been given a pretty clear of who did it, why and how, and we've also already seen a depiction of how the uniform cops react when one of their own is under investigation (last year's excellent "Upstairs, Downstairs") and don't need a repeat of that. We know all we need to know and can fill in the blanks about the rest. Whether this was planned or whether the show literally ran out of time is anyone's guess, but it worked better this way than it likely would have with a big denouement. There were other small touches throughout that added up to give me more of a warm fuzzy than usual. Jill's trick with the Pepsi can was one; at first I thought it was just another Simone-style sympathy ploy, but when she explained what she was doing, I lightly slapped my forehead and said, "That's why she's the detective and I'm not." And serving as a nice counterpoint to that bit of fingerprint wizardry was the end of the opening scene, with the neighbor assuming that dusting for fingerprints would solve everything (a comment that's been lodged on the Net a few times, methinks). Meanwhile, the character rehabilitation of one Greg Medavoy is proceeding well. He still says some things that cause colleagues' eyes to roll (though I don't think the "Generation Next" quip was that awful, honestly), but he's much more credible in an interview room. And the bit with Greg the Psychic was priceless (and the type of perp humiliation that would be too belabored for Andy to bother with). About the only thing that bugged me about the show was Matthew Glave's work as the mentally ill suspect. The show's casting people are usually so great at finding the right actor for every role, no matter how small, that when an actor doesn't seem to fit the part, it really sticks out (I thought everyone else was well-cast as usual, especially the actor who played Officer Richardson). Maybe it's just because I'm used to Glave as a callow smoothy on "ER" (where he plays occasional John Carter nemesis Dale Edson) or in those non-stop commercials for "The Wedding Singer," but it felt like he was trying too hard to act unhinged; I could see him acting, and that's a distraction. Andy's cancer (can it really be anything else?) was largely confined to that one scene in the coffee room, but you could easily read Andy's increased surliness throughout as stemming from his anxiety. Franz was his usual fantastic self in that scene, but I have to wonder where this can go, unless this is Milch doing some long-term planning for the series finale (the show is renewed through all of next year, but that could be all she wrote). That's it for this week. I put a rush job on this review once I saw that Amanda's would be late, so apologies for any typos/errors of fact/gross libel/etc. See ya in the funny papers... Alan Sepinwall * e-mail: sepinwal@force.stwing.upenn.edu NYPD Blue page: http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~sepinwal/nypd.html RANDOM QUOTE: "You forgot to read your fortune cookie. It says 'You're shit outta luck.'" -Clint Eastwood, "The Dead Pool"