Memphis Beat

This year Dwight has pretty much buried the impersonator tag, though he still has Elvis posters on his wall, and Memphis Beat has further solidified its standing as one of cable's more engaging police dramas.

While it sounds old hat, the who, what, when, where, why and how of this police procedural doesn't go the usual-suspects route. This show really keeps you guessing. And the soundtrack, by blues singer Keb'Mo, will keep you entranced.

Memphis Blues has a similar feel to "The Closer" at the same stage. The secondary characters are not yet developed, and the show feels fairly pat. But it has the necessary ingredients for a lightweight, innocuous procedural.

The players have all done fine work in other venues, but the story isn't here. The network that "knows drama" needs to step it up a beat.

Except for the setting, there really isn't much to distinguish Memphis Beat from hundreds of cop shows past and present. As a matter of fact, it's far more like them than it is different.

More often it is labored and belaboring, from the eccentric station-house staff--including Abraham Benrubi, wearing Willie Nelson's old pigtails, as a Chickasaw desk sergeant, and DJ Qualls as a slack-jawed Cletus of a patrol officer--to the Elvis imitators on the street and Dwight's constant promotion of Memphis as "sacred ground" to people who, after all, live there too.

As drama, Memphis Beat is a dreary failure, a formulaic cop show distinguished only by its poor execution.