(TV SERIES) Ballard Season 1 - A Well Made Police Procedural Drama Set in Bosch Universe

As I was browsing through various streaming platforms mid of last week, I came across this new series that looked interesting on Prime Video. I decided to give it a try on Thursday night and was able to finish it on Saturday. Without further ado, here's more on the series.

Brief Story Line

LAPD Detective Renee Ballard (Maggie Q - Fear the Night, Nikita TV series etc) was the lead of Cold Case Unit together with a team of retired police Thomas Laffont (John Carroll Lynch - Big Sky TV series, The Trial of the Chicago 7 etc), reserve officer Ted Rawls (Michael Mosley - Hot Pursuit, Scrubs TV series etc), volunteer Colleen Hatteras (Rebecca Field - The Client List TV series etc) and legal intern Martina Castro (Victoria Moroles - Snow Falls etc). The team was formed to focus on the murder of politician's sister that occurred many years before. 

However along the way, they also tried to solve other cases including the death of a John Doe which intrigued Renee. While investigating that specific case, Renee interviewed the office in charge named Samira Parker (Courtney Taylor - Neon TV series etc) who had left LAPD due to some personal reasons. Ultimately Samira felt the need to solve the case and decided to rejoin the force under the Cold Case Unit. 

As the team investigated the cases, they found that they had to deal with a large conspiracy which would endanger their lives. So what would happen to Renee and her unit? You could find out in the first season of this series.

End of Brief Story Line

To be honest, when I started watching this series, I thought it would just be another one of the standard police procedural series. But when I watched the first episode, I had a feeling that the series was more like a continuation of something and not really the beginning of something new. As I continued watching and saw the ending of that episode, it hit me that indeed it was. So I read more info and found out that apparently the series was set in the same universe of the highly rated series Bosch. 

As soon as I watched the recap before second episode, I could not stand it and decided to watch the series finale of Bosch: Legacy where the character Renee Ballard was first introduced. I am glad I did cause it gave me a better sense of appreciation to several characters who appeared more than once in this series. Mind you I never watch Bosch or its sequel before, but now I am tempted to give it a try. Only problem? They had 10 seasons which would take a lot of time. Anyway, even though Ballard was shown for the first time in that series, her background story was very brief there and was obviously revealed more in her own series. 

What I liked in here was the wonderful story telling and the way other characters were given sufficient screen time for audience to feel attached. Even though the series was titled Ballard, but her team members were all unique individually and formed a cohesive unit instead of just appearing occasionally as minor support. The case solving was definitely the strong point here and I liked that there were more than one major case to satisfy me. As it is not a heavy action series, understandably it only had little action but it did not really bother me cause I am accustomed to similar kind of series. Aside from those names I mentioned above, the series had plenty of additional cast such as Amy Hill (Lilo & Stitch live action remake etc) as Ballard's grandmother Tutu, Noah Bean (12 Monkeys TV series etc) as councilman Jake Pearlman, Ricardo Chavira (Desperate Housewives TV series etc) as RHD detective Robert Olivas, Michael Cassidy (Men at Work TV series etc) as Renee's love interest Aaron and several others, including special guest star Titus Welliver (Escape Plan 2, Man on a Ledge etc) as Harry Bosch.

Now if you are fans of Bosch series, then you would know that it was based on character created by novelist Michael Connelly who also wrote Renee Ballard novels and Mickey Holler aka Lincoln Lawyer. Connelly served as executive producer in this series so his input would definitely provided better context. The series was created by Michael Alaimo and Kendall Sherwood for Prime Video which is definitely to fill the void after Bosch: Legacy completion almost 3 months ago. The first season of the series consisted of 10 episodes with standard 45-ish minutes duration and it has a cliffhanger ending that I am quite confident will be resolved in subsequent season as it was well received by critics. Although by the time I wrote this, there is no news yet of its renewal. My favorite episodes would be the last two which provided some shocking twists and dramatic moments. Oh I also enjoyed the sixth episode that was intense and ended with a real bang. 

Overall this was an entertaining series. I liked the solving of cold case as usually it would take more challenging route and I also loved the large story arc of that major case to keep us interested till the very end. The characters were enjoyable to watch and the story telling was another plus. So if you like police procedural series which is not the standard episodic case solving and set in the same universe of that well received Bosch series, then I think you would enjoy this one. I myself had good time watching this series and cannot wait for second season to be available.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars