Saturday, October 30, 2010

Watch Terriers or Else!

The or else is that, if they don't get more viewers, we won't be watching them at all. The show is in danger of being cancelled at the moment.


If you don't yet know about Terriers, just let me say that it's the most clever and witty dramatic show on TV right now, yet at the same time it's down to earth and gritty (in a good way). It's about a pair of pretty regular good ole boy types, Hank and Britt, who start a private investigation firm called "terriers." Hank is an ex-cop who did some things that got him booted from the force, and Britt is an ex-crook who's determined not to go back down that road. They're both broke, living job to job while working out of Hank's beat-up old pickup truck. In fact, you might say they're broke and broken. Hank's recently divorced and we see him struggle with his ex getting remarried. Britt decides he wants to marry his girlfriend, but she's suddenly getting a wild streak. And into the mix comes Hank's brilliant, but disturbed, sister recently escaped from a mental hospital and hiding in Hank's attic until he finds out about her.

It's a strangely intriguing show on many levels. Just reading that last paragraph, you probably are thinking it's pretty bland. What makes it work is the dialog and underlying feel of things. I've never watched a show in which I felt so much like I was actually inside the character's heads. The chemistry between Hank and Britt is great, and that's undoubtedly due to the fact that Michael Raymond-James and Donal Logue are best pals in real life. And there's plenty of offbeat literary referrences, which seems kind of bizarre coming from these two guys, at least one of which we know never attended a day of college.

It's on the FX network. You can also catch it on Hulu.