The ‘Eyes’ also means eye candy
“Eyes,” a likable new crime melodrama that premieres tonight on ABC, stands for “private eyes,” an elision clearly meant to make the enterprise sound mysterious and sexy and contemporary -- which it pretty much is, at least enough to provide some decent midweek fun. (The other possible abbreviation, “Privates,” would also not be amiss.)
These are not the ragged knights-errant of the mean streets of old, with their desk-drawer whisky bottles and heads bumpy from pistol-whippings -- while the traditional trench coat does appear for an instant, early in tonight’s first episode, it’s worn by a woman, who has just shown us her bare back -- but ambitious young professionals, indistinguishable from our city’s other ambitious young professionals, expensively dressed, perfectly coifed and looking good.
Indeed with its airy volumes, clean lines, abstract art and refrigerator full of designer water, the large, bustling and aggressively modern headquarters of Judd Risk Management looks like nothing so much as the offices of a top-flight talent agency. (“Risk management,” redolent as it is of lawsuit avoidance and actuarial stats, is not a phrase likely to have passed Philip Marlowe’s lips, had he survived into the risk-averse world that produced that concept.) Run by Harlan Judd (Tim Daly, long of “Wings”), the company makes millions and millions of dollars but spends more, on high salaries, new gadgets and sundries. (“Do you have any idea how much bottled water costs?” Harlan asks new lawyer and possible love interest Laura Leighton (“Melrose Place”). Running a deficit makes them successful underdogs, a have-cake, eat-too sort of dramatic device: It’s hard to love a character who wears an $80,000 watch, as Harlan does, but you forgive him his indulgence because he’s “broke” and it’s “the last nice thing” he owns.
Though creator John McNamara (“Fastlane”) spreads a little evil around the workplace -- there is some palace intrigue, a pinch of adultery -- he gives Harlan a firm seat on the moral high ground. His essential goodness is thrown into relief by giving him an evil nemesis, a competitor named Clay Burgess (Gregg Henry), for whom Harlan used to work and who is attempting, sub rosa, to take over Judd Risk Management. “I left your employ because I don’t like the way you do business,” Harlan tells him. “I don’t like the people you work for and I really don’t like the people who work for you.” Burgess is one of those bad guys who likes a good laugh, even at his own expense, which in some funny way just indicates the depth of his depravity.
Harlan, on the other hand, is a very good, not-evil boss, even though, as Rick Worthy, who plays Harlan’s right-hand man, points out, “You create chaos. There’s usually no real reason; you’re bored
The plots are clever enough, in their Swiss cheese way, and the soap-operatic underpinnings quite seductive, and offer at least twice per episode the deep satisfaction of the well-sprung trap. Everything runs smoothly for our heroes, even a little too smoothly, thanks to their superior smarts, their handy gadgets (screenwriters everywhere seem to have taken the words “hack into the mainframe” as an excuse to stop thinking) and a heaping helping of convenience. Top agent Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon (“NYPD Blue”) dresses as a maid, walks into the hotel room of a man who has embezzled $100 million and, seconds later walks out with a wastebasket full of “numbered accounts, overseas, possible Swiss chocolate” (I think that was a metaphor, but possibly he’d just been eating Toblerone).
But it’s the characters and cast who sell it, and they are a less predictable group than usual. Worthy, as a quietly tough, gay black super-snoop recently recovered from a nervous breakdown, stands out most noticeably, and I particularly liked A.J. Langer (“My So-Called Life”) as a buttoned-up new operative still trailing her military-bred ideas of hierarchy and propriety -- though that’s already beginning to crack. Which is to say nothing against devious Eric Mabius or troubled Natalie Zea, or for that matter weary Reg Rogers, who, unfortunately, disappears after tonight’s episode.
Above all there is Daly, without whom there might not be enough show to show up for. Aging -- or not aging -- remarkably well, he plays Harlan as the very picture of insouciance, swamping his opponents in ironic bonhomie and pitching most of his lines for dry comedy, even when a life is at stake. He never breathes hard or cracks a sweat, nor would you want him to -- this is not that sort of fantasy.
*
‘Eyes’
Where: ABC
When: 10-11 p.m. Wednesdays
Ratings: TV-14-S (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14, with an advisory for sex)
Tim Daly...Harlan Judd
Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon...Nora Gage
A.J. Langer...Meg Bardo
Laura Leighton...Leslie Town
Eric Mabius...Jeff McCann
Rick Worthy...Chris Didion
Natalie Zea...Trish Agermeyer
Executive producer and creator, John McNamara.
