I Watch TV: Private Eyes

Private Eyes

In my first review of Private Eyes I compared it to Castle. That was unfair, as it found its own niche, but now Private Eyes is done I will put a Castle-criticism on this show and it's this: the will-they-won't-they kept getting reset.

It’s an odd final season. We were left with a cliffhanger last season, as Angie was shot while stopping a murderer (their relationship with the police has been smoothed over, the boss cop vanishing from the show and Danica Powers, the detective they always go to, having an arrangement where Shade and Angie get a free hand while getting bad guys to incriminate themselves then the police swooping in for an arrest). This isn’t let go, with the first episode a mystery set in the hospital, and her spending several episodes understandably nervous around guns. With only eight episodes they have plenty of high concepts (the hospital, a high school reunion, a radio therapist, a car show, a mystery writers convention, Billy The Kid’s boots, a smart home, a drag bar) and slightly more murders than I’m really into. Plenty of other murder shows on TV! Shade’s Dad has a subplot in which he runs for the city council to stop the local green space being developed, and this also takes up most of Shade’s daughter and her boyfriend drama. Other than this the ongoing storylines mostly aren’t ongoing as the two leads check in with their significant supporting characters (Shade’s ex-wife, Angie’s Mum, Tex (a PI from Seattle), and Maz (formerly their police contact, the actor becoming a guest star when he went full time as Turkish hacker/pervert Rich Dot Com on Blindspot)).

They sort of tie things up at the end, though I honestly thought there would be one more episode, as they adjusted to the various changes made at the end. Apparently not.

Which is probably my main criticism, that it’s nice what they give us, but I always felt it had the potential to do a bit more.

So here we are. Sixty episodes of Canadian crime drama, light-hearted with charismatic actors, a nice mix of murder and non-murder crimes, a lot of high-concept settings, a few fun jokes. Is that what you want? Then knock yourself out.

Watch This: Some fun detective times
Don’t Watch This: If you want the show to commit to its own concepts, or decide what it’s really about