‘Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector’ Episode 1 indicates NBC series will end up a formulaic procedural
NBC's adaptation of Jeffery Deaver's novel ‘The Bone Collector’ in the series ‘Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector’ is as exhausting as it is boring. The first episode begins with a bit of a backstory -- how the eponymous character (Russell Hornsby), a genius of a criminologist, is left paraplegic after he falls victim to a trap set by his, once again eponymous archnemesis, the Bone Collector.
The Bone Collector is every bit as cocky as Lincoln and loves to leave clues (as any serial killer does), because who doesn’t enjoy having “brilliant” law enforcement hot on their trail?
Three years later, as Rhyme is rendered disabled, stuck either to his bed or a wheelchair, a rookie NYPD detective called Amelia Sachs (Arielle Kebbel) becomes his unlikely ally. She comes across a staged crime scene in a subway tunnel that has all the telltale signs of a crime worthy of the Bone Collector.
In fact, all that was missing was a greeting card signed “Hey, miss you guys. Love, Bone Collector xoxo”. Anyway, together Amelia and Lincoln begin this cat-and-mouse game in the hunt for the aforementioned archnemesis. It is honestly, as insipid and uninspired as it sounds.
The show tries hard (and fails) to deliver a Sherlock-Moriarty level game of hide-and-seek. While Sherlock Holmes, the egomaniac he is, is actually intelligent and has a virtuosic ability to observe and calculate and conclude, Lincoln Rhyme, on the other hand, is only called a genius without an iota of demonstration of said intelligence to back the claim up.
And if it weren’t bad enough already, he painfully speaks in cliches. Too many cliches. Hornsby is not bad in the show at all. But if they were going for a disable-grouchy-genius, they should have gone the David Shore way and modeled a character after Dr. Gregory House of ‘House M.D.’
For a show that comes from a rich literary source, however, the character is a little too two-dimensional and tame. But that’s not a problem strictly related to just Hornsby’s character. It is the defining theme of the whole show (or at least just the first episode).
There are, of course, a few things worth liking. Kebbel is a solid performance. But one has to wonder if she will be ideally utilized, considering the show’s title is not ‘Lincoln Rhyme & Amelia Sachs: Hunt for the Bone Collector’. But thank god for that, anyway, because the name is already a mouthful.
The Bone Collector may be a formidable enemy, but ultimately (so far), Lincoln Rhyme’s greatest nemesis is its predictability; it’s by-the-numbers tropes. Which is honestly a symptom of network television more than anything else.
If the first episode is anything to go by, the show is at the lowest rung of middle-brow programming. One can only hope that it makes the best use of Hornsby and Kebbel going forward.
‘Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector’ airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.