A Man. And His Blog.

The series is too easy for me. Nothing spectacular happens, and it only lives through the buddy-comedy between Deaq (Bill Bellamy) and Van (Peter Facinelli), which wants to be alive, but actually never lives. But somehow the series works anyway, with a mysterious factor of being boring as hell.

The episode was alright, the story was of course full of stereotypes, and I didn’t find much interest in all of this. Deaq’s background story with his girlfriend Rosaria (Tammy Townsend) was okay, and it gave him a bit of character, as well as some opportunities for drama scenes. But I didn’t really like the scenes between the two, because they were just way too stereotypical. When Van came with his gun and wanted to talk sense into Deaq, I really wished he would kill him right here and right now, just so that Deaq learns that he can’t be such a cliché as an undercover cop, and so the writers learn not to write so many clichés in a series about undercover cops.

While Deaq’s story was unlikable, I liked Van’s end of the story. He looked like he was having fun, and it is always nice to see that at least tone partner of an undercover duo has fun while working. It would have been even cooler, when the writers would have played with the thoughts of having some buddy moments for Van and his new “colleagues”, instead just the guy he wanted to save after the shootout. Like the bullriding scene: How good would have been the episode, when the writers actually focused on that part of the story, instead of the Deaq/Rosaria relationship, which was lame like horse shit?

I want to have more screentime for Billie (Tiffani Thiessen), and I can’t stop saying that. But her two scenes she had here were kick-ass. First she interrupted the bad guys’ dinner with a smile on her face, and then she threw Shadow (Robert LaSardo) out of the truck (and how she did that). Billie seriously needs an episode of her own, where she can kick ass and stuff. Furthermore, I liked the “interrogation” scene in jail, when Van was kicking that bastard in the balls – hilarious.

Average episode, forgettable. The series needs some humor. 5.5/10

Charming Van is flirting with a guy

Not so charming Deaq takes a shot at his girlfriend's boyfriend

An unbeatable team: Deaq, Van, a hot sports car

Not that I didn’t expect it and I kinda remember it when I saw the series back when it aired in German television, but do all episodes of the complete season have the distinctive feature of the first episode half being interesting and good, while the second half fails in delivering a more proper story, while the characters go deeper into their undercover missions? The episodes “Girls Own Juice” (1×02) and “Gone Native” (1×03), have an interesting start, I am hot for the rest of the episode, but when the halftime is reached, the writers obviously wanted to bring a bit more seriousness into the episodes, which is why there was suddenly something, what resembled a real story. The only thing is: It doesn’t really fit the show. Instead of giving some real stupid action, hot and sey women, some shootouts and explosions and in the midst stories I don’t have to think about (think Human Target here), the writers really wanted to bring some depth into the series. They didn’t succeed with it though.

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Deaq, Billie and Van take on the highest and lowest criminals in L.A.

Sometimes I find myself asking why TV shows from this genre don’t air on cable television, or better: pay TV. Instead of teasing how hot women in Los Angeles actually are, the producers could show the bigger picture: having some undercover cops working in a dirty business, letting them deal with hot chicks, shooting bad guys in the head – CounterStrike style included. Fastlane was a short-lived action blockbuster, which dealt with two undercover cops, doing their jobs among bad people and naked women (the ones they fuck within an episode and which were never heard of in later episodes), aired on FOX during the 2002/2003 TV season, paying a lot of homages to Miami Vice, at the end canceled because of low ratings and high production costs – after all, supercars, guest appearances, licenced soundtracks and the unusual cinematography for a network television series were too much for the production companies Warner Bros. and FOX, paying close to three million dollar per episode (which is really a lot for a series in its first season). What follows now is a little review of the 45-minute pilot episode, before I am getting hot with the other 21 episodes of the season. So, buckle up, because it is going fast.

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