THE ODD COUPLE & BATTLE CREEK TV REVIEWS – WHICH IS THE REAL ODD COUPLE DEBATE – PART 2 by: Money Train

Two detectives with different views on the world team up and using cynicism, guile and deception, they clean up the streets of Battle Creek…IMDB.com

I like CBS’s new “Battle Creek” because the buddy cop TV drama is always a winner if it is done right. The “Odd Couple” in “Battle Creek” are Dean Winter as the bitter, cynical, distrustful “Dirty Harry” type Russ Agnew and Josh Duhamel is the handsome, optimistic and “Dudley Doo Right” Milt Chamberlain. “Battle Creek” is like ABC’s many “casual crime” shows like “Castle”, “Forever”, “Rookie Blue”, “Motive” and Fox’s “Backstrom” where the police cases are very simplistic and secondary to the personal relationships and lives of the lead law enforcement officers. The serious TV crime shows are CBS’s “CSI”, NBC’s “Law & Order: SVU” and “Chicago P.D.”, Fox’s “The Following”, BBC America’s “Luther”, “Ripper Street” “Copper” and “Broadchurch” and HBO’s “True Detective”. So far the early episodes of “Battle Creek” show Dean’s 24/7 obsession with finding the real reason why Milt was suddenly transferred to Battle Creek, MI to make his life miserable with solving local crimes with the latest and best law enforcement gadgets and resources. “Battle Creek” has quirky written criminal cases like when Russ and Milt visit their coroner Meredith Oberling (Meredith Eaton) to check up on a victim who was drowned in vat of maple syrup. And instead of discussing their weird murder case Russ starts mocking and berating Meredith about how the Battle Creek police budget was depleted to make her morgue designed for a little person. “Battle Creek” also has an unpredictable, flawed and diverse cast such as Aaron Funkhauser (Grapevive) having a wild and drunken bachelor party, Fontanelle White (Kal Penn) buys fake pot with his medical marijuana card, Russ’s mom (Candice Bergen) is a wanted felon, the office manager Aubrey Dollar (Holy Dale) solves cases while Russ wants to date her, Erin Jacocks (Liza Lapira) is constantly fixated on Milt’s great looks and Commander Guziewicz (Janet McTeer) has a Black/biracial son on parole who lives in a halfway house. “Battle Creek” reminds me of the 90’s “Due South” which was another great “casual crime” series pairing a Canadian Mounty and streetwise urban cop. I must give “Battle Creek” a $$$ and it is CBS’s best “Odd Couple” TV show.

Written By: David L. $Money Train$ Watts – Journalist/Film Reviewer FuTurXTV & HHBMedia.com – David Velo Stewart – Editor – www.hiphopbattle.com