Nash Bridges
Cast & Key People
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Our Review
Don Johnson spends the late nineties as a San Francisco inspector whose real calling is restoring classic cars he cannot afford, playing each case the way he plays the garage: loose, smirking, jazz where the script asks for sheet music. Nash Bridges is CBS cop television about a man whose hobby is more interesting than the plot, which is a polite way of saying the car collection is the show’s real achievement.
The early seasons carry a decent bay area grit and a partner dynamic that works harder than it gets credit for, and the later addition of Cheech Marin loosened the whole set up. Cases are episodic in the most literal sense: no arcs, no consequences, everything reset by the next tide. It is television made by professionals who understood that comfort is a format, not an accident.
Watch it the way its audience did, half on, half off, and it never disappoints in either direction.
Our score: 6/10.
