Back in year 2016, I knew that there would be a TV series based on the quite popular movie franchise Lethal Weapon where the original casts were Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. After the first season was completed few months ago, I set my mind to see the whole season starting from around 2 weeks ago. Now that I have completed watching it, I would like to share my thoughts on this series. So let us move on to the story now.
Brief Story Line
Martin Riggs (Clayne Crawford - Rectify TV series etc) was a former police in Texas who was transferred to Los Angeles Police Department in the robbery/homicide division. He was partnered with a senior detective Robert Murtaugh (Damon Wayans - Bulletproof, Marci X etc) who just recovered from a heart surgery and should avoid having too much excitement. The partnership was initiated by their captain, Brooks Avery (Kevin Rahm - Desperate Housewives, Mad Men TV series etc) who was previously Murtaugh's partner.
Due to the tragedy that Riggs experienced before he moved to LA, he was very suicidal and not afraid to fight anything dangerous which was totally what Murtaugh against. LAPD had assigned a psychologist named Dr. Maureen Cahill (Jordana Brewster - Fast & Furious series, D.E.B.S etc) to treat Riggs' mental health. Meanwhile Murtaugh had a very supportive wife Trish (Keesha Sharp - Girlfriends, Are We There Yet? TV series etc) who was an attorney. They had two teenage children named RJ (Dante Brown) and Riana (Chandler Kinney) who sometimes gave Murtaugh headaches due to their adolescent problems and a third daughter who was still a toddler.
During their investigations, Riggs and Murtaugh sometimes were assisted by a junior detective Bailey (Michelle Mitchenor) who was always very serious and a rather weird and awkward but very intelligent medical examiner Scorcese (Johnathan Fernandez). In each episode, Riggs and Murtaugh would be facing various crimes involving robberies but mostly homicides. So how could two totally different individuals be able to partner with one another? Find them all in this exciting buddy cop series.
End of Brief Story Line
Now this is genuinely one of the best TV series based on movies that I have ever seen. I remembered watching the original Lethal Weapon (and its sequels) many years before and I still recall that the main attraction of those movies were the odd relationship of the suicidal, non-thinking, trigger happy Riggs with the calm, professional, serious by the book detective Murtaugh. The comedic situation and of course the action sequences which at that time were pretty awesome with lots of car chasing, gun shooting, bomb exploding, and fist fights with the bad guys were also interesting. All the essence and spirit of those movies were available in this series. So when you see this series, you could feel all the sense you felt when watching the original movies.
The good things about the series were not only as they were quite honoring the movies (there were no changes in characterizations at all) but also the nice chemistry between the new Riggs and Murtaugh. You could also feel the relationship growing to a better one from the early stage in the pilot episode until its finale. Though the Murtaugh here was a lot more comedic (perhaps due to played by Damon Wayans who was quite a regular in comedic role). While Clayne Crawford despite I was not familiar with his works earlier, quite good in portraying a person who suffered from a huge tragedy. The rest of the supporting cast actually quite good and memorable despite having brief screen time. Except for Captain Avery and Dr. Cahill who were shown a lot more and having each an episode which had some focus on them. I also kind of like the character Scorcese which gave a rather comical role due to his awkwardness.
Apart from the nice similarities with the original movies, the series also had some very good episodes. Some of my most favorite episodes were the pilot episode (for obvious reason), 15th episode due to the new character and very fun episode, 17th episode due to the very surprising twist and the finale which truly made me want to see the second season asap. From what I understand also that the series were getting not too bad of a critics rating and audience seemed to enjoy them as well. So hopefully the series would be having many seasons in future.
If there is anything that probably displeasing was the appearance of Clayne Crawford who might not be enjoyable to see by some audience. Though it was quite understandable due to his condition, but he is no Mel Gibson after all. However this one is more towards personal opinion (and I think if my wife sees this series later, she would definitely complain about it. LOL). Oh one more thing that I earlier thought a little bit of a downside was there seemed to be no major arc story, but apparently there was one and it was very interesting plus it would continue also to the following season.
So if you liked the movies before, then you would be able to enjoy this series. It would give you the satisfaction of seeing Riggs and Murtaugh every week solving cases and wreaking "havoc" in the city of Los Angeles while capturing criminals and of course seeing their relationship.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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