Review: A & E's The Beast Series Premiere

Oh dear.

The new FBI drama, The Beast, premiered last night (January 15th, 2009) on A & E.

I hadn't heard much of the show until a week ago when its star, Patrick Swayze, announced that he had come down with pneumonia, an apparent complication that had arisen from his fight with pancreatic cancer. As an actor who has been around for years and been in his share of hits, he has garnered the deserved round of sympathy from fans, actors, and other Hollywood insiders.

When such sad stories develop, it's only natural that people want to see things work out best for the stricken individual. In this case, with a new show set to launch starring Swayze, his physical appearance noticeably affected, and whispers that, despite his positive outlook, this could be his last performance, a collective hope that The Beast is something special quickly took shape.

There's only one small problem with that narrative. The Beast is a forgettable and tiresome disappointment.

The concept here is quite basic. Patrick Swayze plays an undercover FBI agent, Charles Barker, who breaks all the rules. Not the most creative starting point but intelligent and skilled writers have taken more pedestrian ideas and shaped them into entertaining dramas. Viewers can expect no such magic from The Beast.

No Suspense

The main problem here is that there is exactly no resistance offered in the face of the gesticulating, loud, blundering Barker as he breaks all the rules and does what he pleases. Apparently the writers of the show are fully unaware that for drama to work there must be suspense and tension. And the key to creating those two elements is resistance.

Now, there are a series of tasks Barker and his rookie partner, Ellis Dove, must accomplish to achieve their overall goal for this first episode. Those tasks are blandly telegraphed to the audience in the most unimaginative way possible. And when they arrive at each subsequent location to meet someone and extract information or goods, in the face of Barker's absurd tactics, the bad guys simply roll over and give it up.

Not Believable

This matter of Barker putting guns in people's faces in broad daylight and blowing up cars in the street with rocket launchers is slightly problematic as well. Let's see, undercover FBI agents... maybe some subtlety, blending into the background, not being found out, some imagination perhaps? All completely lacking here. With some skill and effort, writers can deftly swat suspension of disbelief out of the way with even the most outlandish premises. Here, the characters and situations are completely unbelievable.

Tired Clichés

Clichés are almost unavoidable in these types of police dramas. But they stand out even more in a show such as The Beast that is lacking in so many ways. Meeting someone with information at a lone park bench in a stark setting here, someone parking under a desolate elevated train line and shooting himself in the head there (I still have no idea what relevance that scene has), a long shot of someone walking away from a pre-arranged clandestine meeting there etc.

And in another tired cop show plot, Barker is showing his rookie partner the ropes using the tough love approach. This involves slamming him up against cars, making stern pronouncements, and testing him in various ways. I'm not familiar with the actor who plays Ellis Dove, Travis Fimmel. So I'm not sure how much of his poor performance is down to the terrible script. But he certainly does nothing to rise above the clichéd lines and predictable plot.

The absurdities run wild as the show draws to a close and things reach that cringe-worthy stage where things become unintentionally laughable. Barker slams on his brakes on another deserted, bleak side street that is slick with rain. He informs his partner that he is to play the role of a hick in their upcoming encounter with some heavies who are supposed to buy a rocket launcher from them (by the way, isn't this entrapment?). The result is truly pathetic.

All of this is compounded by some truly ridiculous dialogue. At one stage, Dove says to Barker,

"There's a line though, right?"

"Yeah, there's a line, so we know where to cross it."

Later, Barker rocks the audience with "Everybody's got choices."

And as the hour long premiere winds down, Barker informs us that "You see, "the beast" eats away at you."

Finally, the show wraps up with a scene that is apparently supposed to set the stage for the remainder of the series. A gaggle of unconvincing FBI agents (all of whom had appeared throughout the show as ostensible criminals; many of the skirmishes had simply been tests for the rookie) confronts Dove on a train and informs him that Barker is a rogue and they want to stop him. So, why exactly don't they? If this is supposed to be some clever mystery that will bring viewers back in the coming weeks, the creators of the show are sadly mistaken.

All of this is so bad that something occurs I have rarely, if ever, experienced regarding a television show. I actually felt embarrassed for the actors on the screen.

I truly hope for Swayze's sake that this is not his last role. As for The Beast, it has no bite and deserves to wither away and die.