How does one of the biggest and best streaming services on the planet propose to deal with one of its most popular shows ending? Well, in Prime Video's case, after the long-awaited conclusion to the saga of detective Bosch this year (11 years after it started), it's aiming to simply keep the series going in spirit, if not in reality.
That means a spin-off that will feature Bosch in a cameo role, while aiming to carry on its legacy through a new central detective – Ballard, played by Maggie Q. The show starts on 9 July, and just got a first full trailer after a recent teaser meted out a few details. It's a pretty great watch, and I've embedded it below.
Q's take on Ballard was actually introduced in the latter stages of Bosch: Legacy's final season, so this is very much teed up for a success among that show's fans. She entered the scene as a hard-bitten homicide detective, but had to make some hard choices. That leaves her in a way tougher spot at the start of Ballard, put in charge of a cold cases unit as a functional demotion.
In theory, that should mean way less action and a much slower pace of work, but Ballard is a classic detective protagonist, which means she's not going to take things lying down. She soon cooks up a team that actually seems to be delivering results on cases that were deemed dead and buried – and one of these cases looks like it might still be alive and kicking.
It won't take long for her to scent what could be a potential serial killer who's still at work, and that'll put her in the middle of departmental conflicts as she tries to keep hold of the case she revived. From the trailer, it's obvious that she'll manage to get out from behind her desk a whole lot, from discovering crime scenes to full-blown shootouts.
Ballard looks like brilliant fun, and more of a traditional cop show than the likes of Reacher, also on Prime Video but with more of a vigilante edge to its justice. It'll be interesting to see if it can last half as long as Bosch did, though – that would be a major success, if so.
