The Unusuals

A refreshing dramedy that captures the hard-boiled world of New York City homicide investigators and their twisted sense of humor

Everygirl Amber Tamblyn is miscast as a cop with a fancy Upper East Side pedigree, but the rest of the ensemble is great, including Harold Perrineau as a paranoid cop and Adam Goldberg as his self-destructive partner. Quirky feels like a curse word, tainted forever by the legacy of David E. Kelley (Ally McBeal, etc.), but The Unusuals might actually turn the word back into praise.

The cast is excellent, and there's potential here, even though tonight's opening episode, as pilots will, tries a little too hard.

The Unusuals doesn’t have the balance between the comedy and the serious stuff right yet, but Terry Kinney lends a welcome acerbic note as the station’s seen-it-all leader, Sgt. Harvey Brown.

ABC'S latest police drama, The Unusuals, manages to tap into both the dark tension and the zany absurdity of a cop's life in New York. If you're looking for a show that captures the best of both those worlds, however, call Wednesday night's premiere episode a work-in-progress.

The Unusuals is not a good show; it is a messy, uneven, silly, inconsequential show.

The series is flat-out tone deaf; a limp drama and a grating, messy misfire as a comedy.