Partly concocted from leftover bits of the previous Boston crime movies made by executive producers Ben Affleck and Matt Damon (particularly Affleck's 2010 production The Town), and partly from screenwriter Chuck MacLean's fictionalized account of the political cleanup known locally as the Boston Miracle, City on a Hill could reasonably be mistaken for a Bean Town version of The Wire.

Some scenes tend to devolve into a lot of bureaucratic jargon and off-the-cuff mentions of Boston locations that might lose anyone unfamiliar with the city. Where the series excels, however, is in the level of detail it brings to its individual characters. ... Such a confident grasp of character goes a long way toward smoothing over the show’s somewhat clumsier big-picture narrative, as City on a Hill proves itself as effective at small, interlocking details as it is at purely hammy thrills.

There are no complaints about the performances in this piece, particularly from the principals and Amanda Clayton, who lends a grimy steel to the role of Frankie’s beautician wife Cathy. Even so, it isn’t as if the kind of story in this “City” hasn’t been told elsewhere and many, many, many times on television and in other places such as New York, Chicago and, hint hint, Baltimore.

None of it feels particularly fresh, but most of it’s well-executed, and the talent in front of and behind the camera is promising enough to earn patience. It seems like the sort of show you’ll like if you like this sort of show.

Although City on a Hill oozed quality, it also suffered slightly from the sense we’d seen it all before.

The actual heisting is kept to a minimum, but there’s still a thrill in the inexorability that haunts Frankie and Jimmy’s scenes.

In its first three episodes, City on a Hill doesn’t quite manage to sketch out the broad institutional framework that underpins a show like The Wire, and it also fails to make any of its primary characters especially endearing in a way that buys the show time for the rest of its mechanisms to click into place.

The first 15 minutes of the first season are a little rough, but if you can get beyond that, it seems like a promising show. Really excellent cast, solid soundtrack, and pulpy fun stories. I'm just hoping it didn't shoot its wad in terms of fun ideas in the first ep.