Critic Reviews

Golden Boy is packed with fine performances, but no amount of actorly talent could have done for this series what its intelligently twisty plots, its nuanced dialogue bearing a distinct resemblance to human exchange--even from the mouths of TV police detectives--has done.

The cast is engaging, the premise is intriguing and the genre long has been CBS' ratings-rich specialty.

Happily, Golden Boy not only manages a fairly original take on cop shows but actually turns out to be surprisingly intriguing.

The scripts offer a well-balanced mix of office politics, underlying mystery and weekly cop procedural. And the first-rate cast ties it all together with abundant skill.

It's a solid, meat-and-potatoes police procedural, and one that could potentially evolve into more depending on how the flash-forwards are used down the road.

Golden Boy works as a decent cop show. But an epic one? Not yet.

The cases themselves are nothing new--indeed, it's all pretty standard procedural stuff, with the only extracurricular detour involving Clark's young sister (Stella Maeve), who he looks after. Yet the device of the flashbacks offers a nifty kicker, teasing at things to come--like why the older Clark walks with a pronounced limp. Ultimately, the series benefits enormously from the interplay between James and McBride.

To say this ground was covered better on The Wire is both an understatement and unnecessary--although the setup has promise. [1 Mar 2013, p.62]

We know how this ends (he becomes commish) but there's little evidence suggesting how or why that happens, and even less reason why we should care. Meanwhile, the best stuff in Golden Boy is the little stuff--sharp, brittle dialogue, nice performances and a street cred that's a cut above average.

In its best moments, the drama has the grit of something more likely to be found on cable channel TNT.