TNT's Brand New Buddy Cop Offering "King & Maxwell" Looks Same As Previous Buddy Cop Offerings

Earlier this week TNT rolled out its latest offering – King & Maxwell, to join its already abundant list of buddy cop shows. Franklin & Bash. Rizzoli & Isles,and now this. If you’re thinking the network is going for the formulaic, you’d be right. There’s definitely a lot of formula at work here, not to mention some questionable production values. But as a summer show, King & Maxwell also has a few things going for it.

For one, the script shows promise. It’s based on a detective series by David Baldacci and there’s a lot of plot to go around. In the case of the pilot, perhaps a bit too much plot, as the episode does feel rushed toward the end. The show’s stars – Rebecca Romjin and Jon Tenney also manage to make the best of what they’ve got, which in this case is a somewhat cheesy script, which does, none the less grant them a number of opportunities to engage in some banter.

Some backstory on the two main characters: they’re both former Secret Service agents turned private investigators. For the opener, they're after the murderer of Sean's friend and mentor, a lawyer representing an accused killer. This brings them (of course) into conflict with some FBI agents, at the start of what feels like it will be a tense relationship with the law at best. There’s also some mild will-they-won’t-they action going on, so that might be something to look out for in the upcoming episodes, as we get to know the characters and their relationship. If you’re willing to invest the time and energy into a show, which at this point seems created mostly to fill an empty time slot that is.

One thing that makes this worth a watch - Romijn and Tenney certainly have the chemistry down.