Backstrom

Our Review

Rainn Wilson plays Detective Everett Backstrom, a brilliant, offensive, self-destructive Portland police detective — House, M.D. as a cop: a genius investigator whose misanthropy is the engine and whose health is the countdown. Based on Leif G.W. Persson’s Swedish novels, adapted for Fox, the formula is the abrasive-genius procedural: unlikeable man solves crimes while his team absorbs the shrapnel.

The supporting cast (Dennis Haysbert, Gene Davis, Kristoffer Polaha) is solid, the cases are competent, and Wilson is fully committed — but the show sits in an awkward middle: not sharp enough to be great, not warm enough to be beloved. It ran one season (2015) and vanished. If you miss the abrasive-genius procedural, this is a perfectly watchable 13 episodes of a great actor doing a familiar dance.

Verdict: Watch it if you miss House. A decent B-side from the era of difficult-men procedurals.