Major Crimes

A sharply written, acted and directed start that will hook fans immediately.

As before there is a nice balance between social drama and personal business, the tragic and the comic, exaggeration and authenticity.

In its first hour, at least, Major Crimes appears to be making a pretty seamless transition.

What threatens to remain a drag is the format itself, with its weekly focus on plea bargains--and, so far, weekly speeches defending the new focus.

Like The Closer, Major Crimes offers utterly predictable crime-solving.

Cases piddle away as everyone hashes out deals at a conference table. Realistic, perhaps, but quite the buzzkill. [20 Aug 2012, p.41]

This shying away from meaty storylines typifies the longstanding weakness of Major Crimes and, to a certain extent, The Closer before it.... As the team has little to do on the job, the episode fills out the time with minor whiffs of narrative.