insidelogo.jpg

FOX’s new crime drama, The Inside, is well, interesting. It was created by Tim Minear who wrote, directed and produced several episodes of Firefly (which I love by the way,) and stars (hubba hubba) Rachel Nichols, Peter Coyote (who I am also watching in The 4400,) and Adam Baldwin (also from Firely and the followup film, Serenity.) Baldwin plays the exact same character as his Jayne Cobb on Firefly – except he wears a suit while looking pissy about things and making smart-ass remarks. Hey, it works!

The show suffers from the usual “first episode” problems – it has to introduce all the characters, it has to sell you on their personalities in quick bursts, it has to inform you of the focus of the show, and it has to be interesting enough to get you to come back. With those issues aside, it has a lot of promise. If the pacing and dialogue continues to be this “cookie-cutter, network TV” style, it will definitely lose me. It seems that Minear’s experience from his days as a writer The X-Files is a strong influence here, as the rooms are dark, the flashlight beams visibly cut through the scene, and there is an emphasis on how shocking they can make the crimes.

I will keep it TiVo’ed for a few more episodes to see how it develops.