Review: ‘Rookie Blue’

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Cop shows are normally not my thing, but I think I could grow to love Rookie Blue.

Debuting on Global Television in Canada this Thursday, June 24 (and ABC in the U.S.), Rookie Blue introduces us to five fresh-faced new cops as they start their careers at a big city police department.

Filmed in Toronto, and making great use of the city’s many picturesque locations, the show is an action-drama about five pretty rookies and what it means to carry a gun with the weight of inexperience on their shoulders.

Starring Missy Peregrym as Andy, who easily carries the story throughout the first few episodes, the show begins on their very first day on the job.

Trying to live up to her own high expectations as the daughter of a cop, Andy pushes herself to do everything right. As luck would have it, Andy’s first call drops her into a trying case involving a murderer who killed a dangerous drug dealer. Barely knowing when to even pull her gun, Andy has a hard time on the scene until she stumbles into a petty drug dealer who tries to escape the building.

Co-starring Charlotte Sullivan as Gail, an overly ambitious young woman looking to make a name for herself; Gregory Smith as Dov, the free-wheeling thrill-seeker; Enuka Okuma as Traci, a single mother; and Travis Milne as Chris, the do-good poster boy for the force; the rookies are amateurs who seem to have a lot of good luck.

They stumble now and then, but these young cops always come up golden in the end, getting the criminals off the streets, and making names for themselves on the force.

That white washed style is both the show’s charm and its flaw because Rookie Blue is inevitably a gleaming version of all the cop stories that have come before it. On one hand, the show is entertaining because the cast is strong and the stories draw you in, but the show is just too pretty and simplistic to be believable, and nothing the characters do seems to actually challenge them very much at all. Their emotions seem a lot more challenging than anything they take on in the field.

Compared to every other cop show out there right now though, Rookie Blue is a well made, thoughtful, and unique new drama that has me hooked. I want to see where these characters are headed, and I find the show’s straightforward style frankly very refreshing. Next to the glittery, fake productions like CSI and their ilk, Rookie Blue is actually charming. You want them to succeed and they’re clearly not trapped in a formula that will be repeated each week, ad naseum.

The cast is also incredibly likeable, and I’m looking forward to seeing where the series takes Peregrym, Sullivan, Smith, not to mention co-stars Ben Bass and Eric Johnson.

Rookie Blue debuts Thursday, June 24 at 9:00 PM (ET) on Global and ABC.

Watch the first trailer for the show right here: