Crime shows ‘Keeping You Company,’ ‘Will Trent,’ ‘Vigilance’ reviews

Crime pays, if you’re network television, and especially if you’re network television, which has a long and rich history of reckoning with male figures and has always had a dominant presence. On some basic level, NBC is “Law & Order” and whatever else Dick Wolf has, while CBS is just “NCIS” and a few spoofs.

Among these shows, inclusion of the obvious is inevitable, given the literally thousands – hundreds of thousands – of hours of such stories logged over the years. Many of them lack “seriousness”, even when dealing with serious things, a lack of weight that helps them watch them week after week. Problems are resolved within an episode, even when longer arcs are connected; it’s character and not cliffhangers that pull you back. Life is messy, they say, but it generally works out – except for the body in the library, of course.

The winter season added several new false crime stories to the broadcast catalog, pushing some of the same buttons – action, suspense, romance (which is also suspenseful) and leavening comedy – with varying degrees of emphasis, in different aesthetic tastes. Each has its charm, its sticky base, its attractive cast, its TV size.

In the likable movie “The Company You Keep,” an action romance premiering Sunday on ABC and developed by Julia Cohen of the Korean series “My Fellow Citizens!,” Milo Ventimiglia plays Charlie Nicoletti, a con artist from a family of con artists. One night in the bar of the swank hotel, he meets Emma Hill (Catherine Haena Kim), whose high-powered political family has no idea that she is working for the CIA – and not Charlie in the two episodes out for review. (She won’t know either, except that he owns a bar.) All of them are low-key: Charlie and his family are just after his girlfriend, who ran off with the $10 million the Nicolettis torn apart. descended from a pack of Irish jokers, and Emma discovered that her boyfriend is cheating on her.

But, as expected, they spark something in each other’s heads, a sharing of secrets. She tells him that she has defined herself against her family (although, at 35, she has just moved back in with them); he tells her that he is defined by a. He is essentially working class, with only a high school diploma; she is upper crust, with a degree from Stanford. But they both favor the Stones over the Beatles. And, inevitably, they move from the bar to the bedroom and, through montage services, into a relationship.

Charlie and Emma are very good at what they do, and although one might think, having seen such an arrangement before, that Charlie and his relatives would enlist or cause Emma to take advantage of it their powers, that it is yet to happen. Although their paths will cross at some point in the season, right now it’s a cat-and-mouse game to know they’re playing.

Ramón Rodríguez stars in ABC’s latest police procedural, “Will Trent.”

(Danny Delgado/ABC)

At the same time, and as in most shows where criminals act as heroes, Nicolettis victims are either worse criminals or worse people – sociopathic, violent or simply entitled. (You can’t fool an honest man, says the philosopher.) Besides, the family — Charlie’s older sister Sarah Wayne Callies and his parents Polly Draper and William Fichtner — were about to give him up, and that’s all. . the latest caper is gone that reluctantly keeps them in the game. (Irish mobsters want their money back and don’t play around; Felisha Terrell plays their icy representative.)

ABC’s “Will Trent,” airing since January (and also streaming on Hulu), adapted by Liz Heldens and Daniel T. Thomsen from Karin Slaughter’s novels, stars Ramón Rodríguez as the eponymous Bureau agent. Investigative Georgia. Will is from the school of eccentric detectives, with a complicated background, having grown up in the foster care system and with a case of dyslexia that left him functionally illiterate — but compensated by superpowers. He can read a crime scene as you are reading this sentence.

In addition to his lone wolf tendencies – he doesn’t want another chair in his office because someone might come in and sit on it – he is also persona non grata among the police in Atlanta for bringing down his corrupt officers, with their -includes new partner’s mother Faith (Iantha Richardson). Meanwhile, he is in a short-term, long-term relationship with homicide detective Angie (Erika Christensen), whom he has known since they were in the same group home. Angie also has new problems, with Mike (Jake McLaughlin), a married detective who once had a drunken one-night stand; now she is recovering and serious about it.

As Will, who is compulsively strapped into a three-piece suit, Rodríguez is elegantly deadpan, but humorless — indeed, it’s essentially a funny show that moves to dark places — and even though he’s literally squashed up, he finds space to relax, with Christensen, who is particularly soulful, and Betty, who is a chihuahua.

Fox’s “Alert: Missing Persons Unit,” airing since January (and also available to stream on Hulu) whose colon-splitting title echoes the “CSI:” and “NCIS:” franchises, as well as “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” A fairly straightforward procedural, with a greater than usual emphasis on domestic relations and the bond of its detective heroes, it is the most traditional and outlandish of these shows.Created by John Eisendrath and Jamie Foxx and set in the title squad missing persons of the Philadelphia PD, the series stars Scott Caan as Jason, who used to be married to and works again with Nikki (Dania Ramirez), who is now engaged to another detective Mike (Ryan Broussard).

Dania Ramirez, Scott Caan and guest star Petey Gibson in the Fox police procedural “Alert: Missing Persons Unit.”

(Philippe Bosse)

Jason and Nikki’s marriage fell apart after their son was kidnapped years earlier, but now Keith (Graham Verchere) is back, as mysteriously as he’s gone – or is it Keith? Daughter Sidney (Fivel Stewart) is not so sure, and we are given reasons to believe her. When Keith returns, Jason temporarily moves back in with Nikki (the ex-spouses are friendly and, as is often the case with TV law enforcement professionals, the house is big), which prompts Mike to become jealous, no matter who much nikki. he reassures him that there is nothing to worry about, or they go into a storage room for a quick workplace sex interlude. Still, dudes, you know – they can be competitive.

The family at work includes in particular the role of Adeola as Kemi, whose amazing command of computers contrasts with or complements her nonchalant recitation of the past life and the various spiritual practices, including rituals with eggs and dung and candles, she disturbs worried parents and spouses. It’s a strange concept, but Role, with screen presence to spare, manages to sell it.

The show’s challenge is to entertain a wide variety of reasons why someone might go missing – and nothing as simple as kidnapping for ransom, a runaway or the child of a divorced spouse. And so there is an emphasis on complex arrangements and psychoses. (Nods to the real world include a Jeffrey Epstein sort whose name Elon Musk confirms is a rip-off when the name is released.) Most episodes are very much about ticking-clock tension and gun-toting action, and there is an occasional ethical or professional debate among our various feared heroes.

Although there are some snooty included, such a set is less than what you get on premium platforms, and if you don’t ask them to be apart from them, you can enjoy a little nonsense and suffer a plot hole or two, they will be filled. hours, and maybe many weeks of them, quite nicely.