Greg Dixon: Backstrom 'the most aggravating and repellent cop show'

Rainn Wilson (right) and Dennis Haysbert are let down by an unfunny script.

Nobody likes a smart-arse. Nobody likes the smartest guy in the room if he's a smug bugger. Nobody likes a goddamn moaner. And nobody likes seeing a boss abuse his staff.

So why the hell, I can't help thinking, would anyone like TV3's new plod drama-cum-comedy Backstrom (8.30pm, Thursdays), possibly the most aggravating and repellent American cop show I think I've ever seen?

To say that the hero - one Detective Lieutenant Everett Backstrom - is an appalling human being is an understatement as gross as he is. He drinks too much, he gambles, he smokes stinking cigars, he uses prostitutes, he mocks and abuses everyone around him ... he's monstrous.

And this, apparently, is the unique point of difference for what is in all other facets just another tedious US police procedural that relies on its audience not looking to closely at the frankly farcical and entirely unbelievable way in which the crimes are solved.

And no I'm not missing the point. You don't have to be as smart as Backstrom thinks he is to know that Backstrom the character and Backstrom the show are supposed to be a bit of a laugh, a bit of a hoot, and oh-so-edgy as the show like, you know, pushes the boundaries of taste. This was why we were invited to laugh about minute or so into the first episode when Backstrom facetiously asked the doctor doing his police medical, an Indian, "if you Hindus are so smart how come 98 per cent of you live at the dump?"

That's not funny, that's just crass. And nor did I find myself laughing at the other lame and tasteless try-hard "jokes" as the premiere's preposterous story about the murder of a senator's son by a heroin dealer unfolded with Backstrom grumbling, so-called wisecracking and abusing all and sundry all the way to the completely risible unmasking of the murderer and his stripper assistant.

Backstrom as a character is a retread as well as a foul-mouthed fraud. We've definitely seen his like before, only better. Most viewers will be familiar with the genius-jackass thing from the much smarter, much classier medical drama, House. Older viewers may also recall the whole loveable-smoking-gambling-boozing-grouch-who-solves-crimes thing was done 20 years ago in the much, much smarter British drama, Cracker. Now that was a genuine classic.

So what to make of Backstrom. You can't fault the casting: it's mainly excellent. Rainn Wilson, who is Backstrom, is certainly an accomplished comic actor with credits including the long-running (though not particularly funny) American version of The Office, while Dennis Haysbert, who plays Backstrom's best detective in the Special Crime Unit, is a terrific (and award-winning) performer.

If I was to be generous I would say that Backstrom is a possibly okay idea that's been completely killed by a script that confuses cliche for originality and snide for funny. But I don't think I want to be generous. Backstrom is awful. I demand someone arrests this show immediately!

- TimeOut