3 out of 5

Created by: Tony Saint

covers season 1

…Sounds like a mini-series, but it seems set up for a second season, so who knows.

Summary: get dem drugs by jumping off buildings and exploding things.  Some melodramatic but fun stuff ensues.  The end.

The Interceptor is one of those shows that you can completely tune out for and never feel like you’re missing much.  The recap of the previous eps airs, maybe you don’t remember something, but you’re like, yep, drugs, scuffle, glower, I get it.  Time for some youtube videos of funny penises, and I’ll write this review whenever.  But: if you damn yourself for not remembering something, and then go back and rewatch the episode, emphasis purposeful, you might suddenly find yourself locked in to some pretty impressive action antics.

O.T. Fagbenle plays “Ash,” a Customs agent who’s tired of nabbing small fish and – thanks to his drama-filled past and witnessing buddy Tommy (Robert Lonsdale) get badly injured in a sting, Ash is happy to go gung-ho all-out-war against drugs, get suspended, then get swooped up by the head of the secretive UNIT group, a special drug-huntin’ task force.  He joins a small team, they get buddy buddy quickly, the reasons why the team is secretive – and why they’re always on the verge of being shut down – are dangled like the “keep watching” plot stuffings they are, and Ash continues to go gung-ho all-out-war and constantly go rogue in his passion-filled hunt for the big kingpin he knows is out there.

The approach is over the top, but we’ll excuse some of the dramatics as probably being compressed versions of events told in the non-fiction book off which this was based.  What’s less excusable – and what unfortunately really drags the series down just as things are heating up – are the excessive TV romantic subplots.  Yes, they inform bits and pieces of the characters composing Ash’s team, and certain events do end up affecting the main storyline, but there are more graceful ways of doing that.  Interceptor just isn’t happy being subtle, though, which is why Ash can get stabbed and beat up and shot and hang one-handed from overpasses and jump through a lot of windows and kick down doors every episode.  That’s the fun side of things, just how amped up the action will suddenly get, and how much brooding sass Fagbenle brings to the role.  This enhances a note of camp in the plot, with uber-badguys taking over every couple of episodes like final bosses, the music telling us that This Guy is totally way more evil than The Last Guy.  But the rest of it feels way besides the point to the extent of mixing the tone of the series.  Drugs are “serious,” so we rarely are meant to laugh, but swerving into romantics feels at odds with all the grim looks Ash gives.  …The one exception being his family subplot, which is the typical “this hunt is taking over your life” bit, but his relationship with his family feels believable, and the quiet times at home are a good juxtaposition (and because it’s already into place, the writers don’t have to force smoochy fireworks into things).

But I liked Interceptor over all.  It’s pretty testosteroney, for sure, but if it does get a second season, perhaps having the characters established will allow it some more focus on the good crashing-through-windows stuff.  Or I can just put it on in the background to forget about it again, then re-rewatch it and really dig it again as well.