Critic Reviews

Creator/producer Shapiro and company do a commendable job establishing the formula early on. The problem is that the concept is by nature wholly repetitive.

As is so often the case, however, it's difficult to invest real-life police work with the sense of excitement that television doles out in scripted programming--even with music whose urgency borders on the comical.

There's little about Homeland Security USA that's warmly reassuring in the post-9/11 world. But the agents do behave with commendable civility (at least while cameras are trained on them) and apparent diligence.

While some of the "finds" the security officers uncover at border crossings tonight at the Los Angeles International Airport, at the Blaine, Wash./Canada border, at the US/Mexican border and while patrolling the desert outside Tucson, are interesting, most are not.

Rolling the wars on terror, drugs, and illegal immigration into one rhetorical package, Homeland Security USA plays partly like a pumped-up recruiting film, partly like a public-affairs outreach video for hard-core video gamers.

Homeland Security USA is a powerful ego boost for insecure civil servants, but it doesn’t reveal much about the homeland’s actual security.