Backstrom
Cast & Key People
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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.
