Boomtown: Season One DVD
July 25, 2004
Detectives and beat cops, reporters and paramedics, lawyers and district attorneys, civilians and criminals; there are a lot of participants to the tricky, complex makeup of law and order, and on the defunct, brilliant NBC drama “Boomtown”, they all get their due. “Boomtown” was a show about stories, L.A. stories, primarily personal stories about loss, both present and past; it was about healing and redemption amidst a handful of brutal, interrelated professions in a concrete jungle where each story is scrutinized tenfold by an intense media machine. It was, most importantly, a show about human emotions. Each episode was jammed packed with character development, while still finding adequate time to spin detailed storylines, sometimes three episodes running, from different perspectives, involving characters representing the basic ingredients of a civilized, yet unruly metropolis, with little cliché and only slightly pretentious. For one year (and six episodes following, before its untimely cancellation) it was the best drama on television, and now, thankfully, NBC has finally done the shows rabid, wounded fans right by presenting the brilliant first 16 episodes on a five-disk DVD package, complete with six commentary tracks and two documentaries. It doesn’t make up for the pain we feel for its absence, but it’s a well-received bandage.
“Boomtown”, which ran for 16 weeks on Sundays at 10 on NBC, before fatally moving to Friday, created a lot of buzz when it was initially screened for critics at an annual TV journalism convention. Praise was rapturous; USA Today’s Robert Bianco thought it was hands down the best new show of the young season (2002-2003), and almost everybody else echoed his praise with four-star reviews of the great pilot episode, with its complex narrative, jumping back and forth, viewing scenes from different points of view, tipped off by de-saturated filming techniques, and slightly altered dialogue. It was realistic and challenging, involving and baffling just the same, and it was superb television, but it was slow out of the gate, and despite the high marks, aggressive marketing campaign, and plum position, it never caught fire, even as, week after week, the show became more confident with its jigsaw puzzle story layouts, developing character relationships, and flashy execution.
I like to blame NBC entertainment chief Jeff Zucker for killing off a gem, especially when he’ll stick by apocalypse-inducing reality garbage like “Fear Factor” and “Who Wants to Marry My Dad” (here’s a hint: nobody), but the viewing public is partially to blame as well. In and ideal TV landscape, low rated masterpieces like “Boomtown” would make the cut based on talent and quality alone, but in a business fueled by advertising bucks, money comes well before quality, unfortunately, and us true fans are left with a handful of 43-minute jewels to remember forever. It’s not enough, but then again, hardly anything ever is, especially in the world of television, where the winds tend to blow in cockeyed directions.
Created by Graham Yost (writer; “Speed”, “Band of Brothers”), an avid film buff, in the guise of “Rashomon”, with shifting perspectives to multiple storylines, “Boomtown” can be viewed as a series about the struggle to find goodwill in the face of tremendous roadblocks. Each of the seven main characters are seemingly good people, scarred by tough histories, both professional and familial, and are hampered by present demons, all the while immersed in the incredible job of protecting the law. Detective Joel Stevens (Donnie Wahlberg) is trying to keep it together after the loss of a child, and his wife’s attempted suicide, balanced against his partner, Bobby “Fearless” Smith (Mykelti Williamson), a superhero of a cocky detective, who is continuously haunted by the death of a friend during the Gulf War, and by his troubled abusive childhood. Police officer Ray Heckler (Gary Basaraba) is dogged by a tabloid scandal involving a notorious drug case, while his partner, officer Tom Turcotte (Jason Gedrick) has issues with his father, a former hero of the department.
The two featured women are also flawed; paramedic Teresa Ortiz (Lana Parrilla) harbors a deep attraction to Detective Stevens, yet is unable to act upon it, while slick reporter Andrea Little (Nina Garbiras) has skeletons involving alcoholism, an affair she’s having with a married man, and resentment for her rich, snooty upbringing. And then there is Deputy D.A. David McNorris (Neal McDonough), a lightening bolt prosecutor, and self-destructive hotshot; he’d just as soon mug for the six o’clock news cameras than he would down a fifth of scotch, which he does, frequently, ignoring his wife, and letting bad memories of his alcoholic father cloud his better judgment. By the end of the pilot, you feel like you know these character’s worst nightmares, by seasons end, you’ve lived them as well.
There was a lot to like about “Boomtown”, from the beautifully crafted scripts, wide-screen, handheld cinematography, and talented group of actors, but my favorite aspect to the show was the intense human emotion running throughout each episode. In the pilot, for example, a young girl is murdered during a botched drive-by shooting, and one of the boys inadvertently involved, an innocent black teenager from a good family, accidentally dies during the investigation. In remarkable bookends, the boy’s grandfather (Damien Leake) painstakingly delivers a monologue, written by Yost, about passing, futility, and waste, disguised as a riff on the dried up L.A. river. “London’s got the Thames, Paris has the Seine, Vienna’s got the Blue Danube,” he says, “and L.A.’s got a concrete drainage ditch, that’s all we’ve got, and it’ll have to do.” It’s a powerful, sun-dappled moment, the weight of which doesn’t come into play until the very end, when he delivers the same monologue to Joel and Fearless, scattering the boy’s ashes: “OK river, take my grandson home.” With an emotional masterpiece of a pilot, it’s no wonder “Boomtown” was an instant critics darling, and over the next 15 episodes, the series would equal the pilots emotional precedent, culminating with a masterful finale, “Lost Child”, which unravels the heartbreaking season-long story of Joel’s dead baby. The year starts with the scatting of ashes, and ends with a hug, and a much-needed resolution; acts of consolations after horrible life-altering events.
After watching the pilot for the commentary track, Donnie Wahlberg, so good as the tortured hero Joel Stevens, wonders exactly why his great show is off the air after such a short time. Reliving the entire season again on DVD, from McDonough’s Emmy-worthy performance as the self-loathing David McNorris, the brilliant 70’s flashback episode “Reelin’ in the Years”, a mystery about a long dormant bank robbery/homicide case involving Tom’s father, ending with a bone-chilling, quintessentially Boomtownian finale, to the painfully sad hostage episode “Home Invasion”, about a dying father (played by the great Joe Spano) whose house is targeted by thieves, like his body has been targeted by cancer, and the shows pinnacle, “Fearless”, a mournful exploration into childhood demons, and the repercussions of sexual abuse; remembering these, and countless other moments from a landmark television series, gone way before its time, I couldn’t agree more.
by Adam Suraf