Critic Reviews

Lifetime's new Against the Wall turns out to be first-rate drama. In fact, it's one of the best new shows of the year.

Against the Wall is not nearly as ambitious as "Chicago Code" was but there's a warmth to the characters and their relationships that should satisfy Lifetime's core audience.

There's much here to suggest that, if everyone relaxes a little, good things will come.

Mostly Against the Wall is a pleasant surprise, with Carpani being a much bigger surprise.

If the show has the courage to probe this very contemporary evolution, Abby's tenure at IA might provide grown-up drama for women of an age more often served by sexist sitcoms. And if not, Lifetime may be delivering just another old-fashioned family drama with nothing new to say.

Despite the pilot's pandering localism and cliched proclamations (about the town, the police, the teams), Against the Wall features some watchable performances (from Carpani and Baker, in particular) and a premise that might yield interesting developments down the line.

Against the Wall has little ambition.

Tonally, it's all over the place.

Is it too much to ask the self-proclaimed Television for Women network to create a strong female cop lead? Instead we get Abby Kowalski (The Glades' Rachael Carpani, who deserves better than this), an oh-so-cutely klutzy (oops--she walked into a pile of cans at the market!) internal-affairs detective who, even at age 30, is disturbingly trying to impress her cop daddy (Treat Williams).

Unfortunately, star Rachael Carpani's Abby Kowalski is the least interesting character in a not especially galvanizing show--no further investigation required.