TV Review: Dick Wolfe's FBI

How is this garbage still on the air?

As I work to transfer old posts from my old Blogger site (which seems buggy AF and appears ready to die at any minute) I haven’t transferred a lot of TV reviews. Why? Because most of those don’t age well. Arrow didn’t age well. Lethal Weapon didn’t age past season two. Revenge started so strong and ended so poorly…

But Dick Wolfe’s FBI… oh, I saw that pilot. It’s still on. And I’ve been forced to see some of it and its spin-off.

It deserved a retread.

So, from 10/25/18…

You asked for miracles; I give you the F. B. I.

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Let's see if I can do a really short version of the a review of the new tv show FBI.

FBI, in this case, stands for “Fascists, But Integrated.”

Yes, Dick Wolf, not content with merely screwing up the Second City even more than it is in real life, returns to fuck up New York once more.

Actually, that's insulting to Law & Order, since they occasionally had some good lines, and they had Sam Waterson and Jerry Orbach putting genuine effort into making their characters work.

And if you don’t like my language? I’m holding myself back from language truly appropriate to their flaming dumpster fire.

All you need to know about FBI is from the original trailer. They are unprofessional characters who don't believe in innocent until proven guilty, played by actors who can't be bothered to emote as they deliver their lines.

The pilot episode forces you to believe that

1. Alt-right = Nazis and

2. said "Nazis" are going to team up with MS-13 to start a race war ....

Yes, really. That was the plot. No, I'm not making this up.

Do you know how many brain cells I had to sacrifice to even type that moronic BULLSHIT?

Yes, I'm cussing on my blog. That's just how full of shit this show is.

Okay, let's back up a few steps.

The Writing.

The writing, it is bad. It is so bad, they have to force emotional moments out of a child being trapped in a bombed building. The mother of the dead child wishes she had been allowed to go into the building and die alongside him…

It should have been a powerful moment.

Except!

SHE HAS ANOTHER SON.

She literally declared that she wanted to leave her remaining son without any parents whatsoever.

The actress playing our female lead cannot really even be bothered to pretend sadness, but she does seem to be very close to saying "YOU HAVE ANOTHER KID, YOU SELF CENTERED BITCH. YOU MAY WANT TO TAKE CARE OF HIM."

Or maybe I was projecting.

Missy Peregrym and Zeeko Zaki in FBI (2018). Nice 9-11 homage. Pity you couldn't make me FEEL ANYTHING.

You know how bad this writing is? They blow up a building in New York City, generating clouds of gray ash and dust, and it is dead. There is no emotion. It is flat. It is dead. They can't even make ME think of 9-11, and I'm the guy who has fucking flashbacks to news footage every time someone starts playing "Pompeii" by Bastille.

And good God, they have all the nuance of a Mack truck running you over and backing up a few times.

"Oh, he's an Alt-right guy."

"You mean he's a Nazi in a suit."

.... Yeah.

Oh, and you know exactly how deviant this “Nazi” is? He made an argument against a synagogue saying “I wanted a hospice on the site. New York City already has more Synagogues than Israel, we need more hospices.”

That was his evil moment. Really, that’s our villain. That conversation was so villainous that the FBI agents leave that very interview and go “Yeah, he's our bad guy.”

Wait, what? I'm sorry, I just got whiplash. While the actor did his best to make his dialogue sound as creepy as possible, he came off as … creepy. That’s it. Not guilty. And while I have no problem with cops playing hunches or gut feelings, that requires that the actors convince me that the characters even have internal organs. It’s hard to have gut feelings when your insides are made of sawdust.

The acting.

To be fair, in episode two, they bring in Alana De La Garza, who is so stunning, charming and charismatic, you can’t help but like her. And Jeremy Sisto is an old hand, a Law & Order veteran who is used to making Dick Wolf dialogue sound like it could be spoken by an actual human being.

But both of these great actors may have a combined five minutes of screen time per episode. They can only do so much with utter shit.

Meanwhile, the two diversity hires who are our main leads can’t act their way out of a paper bag. In fact, I’m certain that they were only hired because one is a woman (I suppose she's a woman, there are days I wonder) and the other is … lightly tanned?

Missy Peregrym (her actual name, apparently) is the Chloe Bennet of the show. Even though she's so poorly written and acted, someone decided that she is the star, despite their being more qualified actors and better written characters.

Then again, I didn't understand her appeal in Rookie Blue, which was another supposed cop show that has less to do with police work than episodes of The Office. She is dull and lifeless in both shows

Hell, look at the photo of her holding a shotgun before a raid. Stern resolve? Or grim realization that she will never be allowed to act ever again? (To be fair, I don't think she's allowed to smile in anything she's in. The only photos of her smiling on screen at IMDB were from episodes of Hawaii 5-0, and that's called "I get paid to film in Hawaii! Fuck ya!")

In fact, she looks bored.

Help. We're in a Dick Wolf production. We have forgotten how to emote.

The less said about Missy's partner, a cardboard character who's only characteristic is that he MAY be Muslim (hinted at in episode two) the better. He is an even WORSE actor than Missy.

You know why? HE'S FORGETTABLE.

Hell, he is so forgettable that I had to look up his character name: Omar Adom 'OA' Zidan. So, again, I guess he's supposed to be a Muslim lead character.

I say “guess” because during episode two, with Jihadi terrorists, he seemed to have no emotional involvement. I'm sorry, if Irish Catholics from the IRA blew up anything in New York, I would be pissed off and ready to string them up by their ankles so casual passerbys could use them for pinatas.

This guy? If there was a change in his inflection over the course of the episode, I either didn't notice, or forgot exactly minutes after I saw it.

At least this actor, Zeeko Zaki, has a really good reason for a lousy performance-- his acting credits (on IMDB) are sparse. He's been on film for a whole six years by this pilot’s release. What's Peregrym's excuse?

And the thing that pisses me off about this? This show is jammed between two NCIS series, so the bleed over is probably going to guarantee that this show keeps going.

Rating? 1/10. It only gets a 1 for Sisto and Garza.

If you want a story where cops act like, oh, COPS, instead of fascist meat machines, here, Hell Spawn. Enjoy.