What’s the name of the show? Wicked City
When does it premiere? Tuesday 27 October at 10pm EST on ABC.
What is this show? It’s a 10-episode anthology series about crime in Los Angeles during different memorable eras.
Isn’t calling the first season of a show an “anthology series” jumping the gun? A bit. It’s like when they end an action movie with a set-up for the sequel but then it doesn’t make enough money to warrant one. Every time that happens, an angel turns into a pair of used 3D glasses.
What is this chapter of the anthology? It’s 1982 on the Sunset Strip and serial killer Kent Grainger (Ed Westwick, dusting off his American accent once again) finds girls in bars, dedicates songs to them on the radio and then murders them in his car while the song plays. One of the girls, Betty (Erika Christensen), escapes his knife, they fall in love and she starts helping him with his crimes. There are also two no-good cops on his tail: veteran Jack Roth (Jeremy Sisto) who recently caught the “Hillside Strangler” and newbie Paco Contreras (Gabriel Luna).
It’s set in 1982, so the soundtrack must be killer. Totally. The pilot brings us songs by Soft Cell, Blondie, Joan Jett, Pat Benatar and a scene set at a Billy Idol concert. It really is the best part of the show.
How is the rest of the 80s flavour? Pretty non-existent. Some of the clothes and sets give off a slightly vintage feel, but there’s no evidence of a deep immersion into the era. In fact, the rest of the action is so bland and the style of the direction so similar to that of every other modern TV show that when it’s set is entirely inconsequential.
So it’s not good? No. Westwick’s sickly charismatic performance is perfect, but the first episode is too sanitised, perhaps due to the constraints of network TV. The same goes for Christensen’s Betty. The idea of a wholesome mother getting romanced into a crime spree by a serial killer is a really interesting one, but so far the show just takes for granted that the transformation would occur rather than showing us why.
The cop side of the story is just as bland. Roth is described as a “screwed-up mess” and there are some allusions to his crooked ex-partner, but we’re not shown why he might be messed up and indeed he doesn’t behave strangely at all: he’s just like every other wizened homicide cop with a chip on his shoulder on TV. It’s just another tired stereotype of the genre without any meat behind it.
Also, so much of the storytelling is clunky, like the absolutely coincidental way the cops’ investigation hinges on a journalist (Taissa Farmiga, who took the year off American Horror Story for this dreck). Oh, and let’s not forget about how everyone keeps referring to the Sunset Strip in the same way that your aunt uses #blessed way too much on Instagrams of her avocado toast.
Is there anything edgy? There’s one scene where Kent has sex with Betty and he ties her up and makes her play dead so he can get aroused. That one sick scene is everything that this show wants to be, but it needs a whole lot more of those moments to be really different.
Can an anthology like this exist on network TV? We need another serial killer drama on television like David Beckham needs more tattoos, but I think there is room for a stylised crime drama, like NBC’s better than average Aquarius, that aired to little fanfare this summer. As far as a sophisticated, intelligent, groundbreaking, cable-calibre anthology series, ABC already aired one: the delicious Emmy winner American Crime, which will return later this year.
Should I watch this show? No. Go stream Aquarius on NBC.com and let’s make season two of that a hit.
