Previewing City on a Hill

There was a time in my life when I though the children were our future, just teach them well and let them lead the way. But whenever I spend any amount of time with the youth today I et increasingly depressed. The last interaction with a trio of teenagers, no of them had heard of the Beastie Boys, thought Eminem was old school, and have never played or even heard of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. For instance Aldis Hodge was Voodoo Tatum in Friday Night Lights with Connie Britton who was on Spin City with Michael J. Fox who was in Back to Future 2 with Elisabeth Shue who was in Hollow Man with, you guessed it, Kevin Bacon.

Although after next week those Hodge and Bacon will have no degrees of separation as they are both starring in City on a Hill. The new show is set in early nineties Boston (O.P.P. on the radio!) and follows a pompous FBI agent (Bacon) who has a great arrest record mostly thanks to illicit means and a new Assistant District Attorney who has to do everything by the books because all eyes are on him because the color of his skin. I sometime wonder if the proliferation of period pieces is solely the excuse for writers to be racist as they want under the guise of historical accuracy. Women are not portrayed much better, there is one actress who shows up in both of the first two episodes but only manages to spend less than ten percent of her time on screen actually clothed.

With the two lawmen, they need a crime to be solved. That comes way of Johnathan Tucker (whose one of his first acting gig was with Bacon in Sleepers) who despite runs a market, still finds time to knock over armored trucks. Although I am not entirely sure why someone with a full time job is risking everything for a $15,000 take. Especially considering what happens in a robbery that goes wrong that draws the attention of the Feds in the first episode. He does have three small children and a full time screw up little brother (a douchebag Bostonian who listens to Marky Mark in the early nineties is a bit on the nose) who wants in on the next score.

The thing about City on a Hill is the story as described in the press package sound much better that the clichéd period crime show that show up at the very least in the first couple episode. The press materials describe the early nineties setting as the height of violent crime and corruption in the city. Then the show starts at the dawn of the turnaround. I would like to watch that show as Bacon and Hodge route out corruption, instead it just comes off as a The Town retread with a couple more bushy mustaches (director of that movie, Ben Afleck is a producer on the show). Future seasons of City on a Hill may end up being compelling, but I feel like I have seen the first season way too many times at this point.

City on a Hill airs Sundays at 9:00 on Showtime.