Cold Case - TV-PG

A mature crime drama that lacks grit and pizzazz.

TV Rating: TV-PG Network: CBS Cast: Kathryn Morris, John Finn, Jeremy Ratchford, Thom Barry Genre: Drama
Available on: DVDDownload

Common Sense Note

Parents need to know that this crime drama suggests more violence than it shows but does depict bloody bodies and murder scenarios, including some involving children. In shorthand dialogue, characters explain the story more than letting it unfold. This leads to frequent stereotyping of villains and witnesses and the relationships among them. Although this series has a woman as the central character, its female characters often behave within stereotypical roles such as the happy housewife, the misunderstood artist, the lonely wallflower, or the fawning gun moll.

Families can talk about the nature of closure -- do these characters find comfort when the crime is solved? What other emotions do the characters have during the story or at its conclusion? How does what happened in the past seem to have affected these people's lives since then? Should people who committed crimes long ago and have since reformed still be held accountable for their actions? Also, are these characters behaving in realistic ways? Would the police believe what one suspect said about another just because he or she said so? Why or why not? Would suspects reveal their roles in a crime just because they were asked? What makes dialogue believable?

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Common Sense Review

Reviewed By: Brenda Kienan

An intriguing premise gone bad, COLD CASE pits a hard-working Philadelphia detective, Lilly Rush (Kathryn Morris), against previously unsolved crimes. Lilly has the advantage of modern forensics but has to deal with witnesses and suspects whose circumstances have changed with time. Luckily, these witnesses and suspects all seem to have spectacular memories; they describe what happened in such blindingly clear detail that viewers might wonder why the case wasn't solved years ago.

The only woman in her department, Lilly is surrounded by a crew of standard-issue cops: mentor Lt. John Stillman (her boss, played by John Finn), trusty partner Scotty Valens (Danny Pino), tough guy Nick Vera (Jeremy Ratchford), and crusty old Will Jeffries (Thom Barry), who improbably remembers many of the crimes in Lilly's dusty files.

In each episode, the team solves one old case. Highly predictable, the plots are populated with two-dimensional characters whose motivations are explained rather than revealed. Aspects of the crime are shown in short, repeated flashbacks that illustrate what happened years earlier (when the case was fresh) and what's happening among characters now.

The theme of this series -- that opening old wounds can involve many emotions but often leads to closure -- could be emotionally complex and gripping. But the show takes the easy way out, creating "complexity" by juggling lots of characters and generating "excitement" through hackneyed dialogue and unrealistic plot points. A quiet location is said to "echo like a church." A detective calls up a suspect and asks whether he killed the victim. A smart bookworm of a young woman falls for the first guy who looks her way.

One inevitable subplot brings into play Lilly's old boyfriend, who provides her character with a dash of drama by riding a motorcycle and being bad for her. He urges her to throw over her job to go riding with him in the middle of the day, while her trusty partner watches her back by urging her not to go. Now there's drama.

Not much thinking goes into solving the cold-case crimes on this show -- after witnesses quickly spout key points, the suspects often simply spill the beans. Each case is neatly and completely solved by the end of the episode, leaving the series stars to tuck those dusty files right back into the archives.

Cold Case is not a show for kids. Older teens might prefer crime dramas with more excitement than this one, such as Law and Order and CSI, or a show like the more thoughtful and humorous Monk.

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Content		CS	adults	kids
Content
Sexual Content Much innuendo and occasional mild sex scenes between characters who are sometimes partially clothed.
Violence Shootings, stabbings, robberies, mayhem -- it's about murder.
Language Fairly tame ("ass," "bitch," "bastard").
Message
	Social Behavior Police staffers offer positive role models and work together as a team. But cartoonish characters and plot "twists" defy believability; in one episode, a mother lets herself be lobotomized so she can be with her son.
	Commercialism
	Drug/Alcohol/Tobacco Drinking and drugs mark some characters as unsavory or weak.