"London has got the Thames, Paris has got the Seine, LA has got a concrete drainage ditch." That's our introduction to Boomtown, a city that rises out of the California dust in the opening sequence of this shortlived cop show from Graham Yost (creator of Justified). First aired in 2002, Boomtown is an original and unconventional police procedural that ultimately proved to be too innovative for network TV.
A kind of Southland-meets-Rashomon, Boomtown's USP is that it explores cases from multiple perspectives, switching between the points of view of seven main characters: two detectives, two police officers, a paramedic, a politician and a reporter. Each perspective reveals new information about a case (a drive-by shooting involving kids, a brutal series of home invasions, the ambush and murder of two cops), bringing the different perspectives together like jigsaw pieces to reveal an outcome.
Personal lives are also explored from multiple viewpoints, with each character's torments laid bare. Detective Joel Stevens (Donnie Wahlberg) from Blue Bloods) appears on the surface to be the LAPD's golden boy, but in reality he's struggling to deal with the loss of a child and his wife's subsequent suicide attempt. Assistant DA David McNorris (Neal McDonough) is attempting to hide an affair with the show's resident reporter while battling an alcoholism.
Made for NBC and shown here on Channel 5, Boomtown was critically acclaimed but cancelled in an aborted second season that fatally ditched the show's unique format. The first season, though, remains a treat, despite a few bum notes (chiefly some unnecessary slo-mo and overly intrusive music).
Good crime drama presents itself as a puzzle for its audience to solve. Cop show fans unfulfilled by the anodyne likes of NCIS or CSI could find a solution in Boomtown.
