The Evidence (TV series)
Encyclopedia
The Evidence is an American
police procedural
drama that debuted on March 22, 2006 on ABC
. The series starred Rob Estes
, Orlando Jones
, and Martin Landau
.
inspector forlorn over the murder of his wife. His best friend and partner provides some comic relief. Each episode begins with a voice-over and the presentation of the evidence for the episode's particular crime. The evidence is presented as though it is puzzle pieces and inviting the viewer to 'play along' in solving the mystery. As the story progresses the characters discover the evidence shown to the viewer at the start of the episode. The inspectors are aided by Dr. Sol Goldman, the medical examiner. The multi-episode story arch involves Inspector Cole investigating the murder of his wife Julia.
The show was created by Sam Baum and Dustin Thomason
, who also serve as executive producers, and is a John Wells
Production in association with Warner Bros. Television
.
The show's pilot episode premiered on Wednesday, March 22, 2006 at 10 p.m. on the ABC
television network. Three additional episodes were broadcast before the show was removed from the schedule due to poor ratings. The remaining four episodes were burned off
on Saturdays during June and July 2006.
based on 24 reviews from television critics. Nancy deWolf Smith
of The Wall Street Journal
said that the show "deserves an award for packing the most intrigue into a first episode." deWolf Smith went on to convey her fascination with the characters, both the texture and depth of Inspector Cole due to the murder of his wife and light-hearted banter of Inspector Bishop. In writing of the secondary and guest stars for the pilot deWolf Smith said, "Even the people who make relatively brief appearances leave you wanting to know more about them." Gloria Goodale of The Christian Science Monitor
found the "hook" of the show to solve the crime along with the cops doesn't really work. Goodale gave The Evidence a grade of B and said it is "another urban crime procedural peopled with hip, conflicted detectives. Still, good casting and well-paced writing give hope."
Tom Shales
of The Washington Post
said that there can be vexing decisions about what to watch, citing the then-current top-rated Sunday shows The Sopranos
and Desperate Housewives
. Shales said that there was no indecision to be found as The Evidence is a "high-stakes heart-pounder" compared to the "lowbrow nap-maker" show Heist
, which premiered at the same time. Shales compared the plight of Inspector Cole to that of Richard Kimble
, the titular character of the television series The Fugitive
.
Alessandra Stanley
, television critic for The New York Times
, was not as found of The Evidence. Among the first things she mentions is that with the show being set in San Francisco there are no Asian or gay characters, not even in the background of crowd shots of the first episode. Despite being filmed in San Francisco Stanley found the show to be "no more representative than the 1970's cop show The Streets of San Francisco
and might as well be set in Chicago
or Kansas City
." Stanley described the characters as the "too familiar" tormented guy with his buddy for comic relief.
Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle
began his review by saying that five years ago, in 2001, The Evidence might have seemed compelling. That was before the CSI franchise set a new standard for the police procedural. "You'd better give the audience some kind of complicated anti-hero character study that is at least as good as what CBS is doing and maybe, quite possibly, dares to approach the level of basic cable. The Evidence offers none of that". Goodman compares the character of Inspector Cole to Adrian Monk
, the titular character of the cable television series Monk
. While both characters' respective wife was murdered the obsessive-compulsive disorder
that Adrian Monk suffers from makes for a more interesting character than the forlorn Sean Cole. Goodman concluded his review by stating that ""The Evidence" is overwhelming that you should watch something else."
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
police procedural
Police procedural
The police procedural is a subgenre of detective fiction which attempts to convincingly depict the activities of a police force as they investigate crimes. While traditional detective novels usually concentrate on a single crime, police procedurals frequently depict investigations into several...
drama that debuted on March 22, 2006 on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
. The series starred Rob Estes
Rob Estes
Robert Estes is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Harry Wilson on the Teen drama 90210, as Sgt. Chris Lorenzo on the Crime drama Silk Stalkings, and as Kyle McBride on the Primetime Soap opera Melrose Place.-Career:Estes first became interested in an acting career while training...
, Orlando Jones
Orlando Jones
Orlando Jones is an American comedian and film and television actor. He is notable for being one of the original cast members of the sketch comedy series MADtv and for his role as the 7 Up spokesman from 1999-2002.-Early life:...
, and Martin Landau
Martin Landau
Martin Landau is an American film and television actor. Landau began his career in the 1950s. His early films include a supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest . He played continuing roles in the television series Mission: Impossible and Space:1999...
.
Summary
The Evidence is a character-driven police procedural revolving around a San Francisco Police DepartmentSan Francisco Police Department
The San Francisco Police Department, also known as the SFPD and San Francisco Department Of Police, is the police department of the City and County of San Francisco, California...
inspector forlorn over the murder of his wife. His best friend and partner provides some comic relief. Each episode begins with a voice-over and the presentation of the evidence for the episode's particular crime. The evidence is presented as though it is puzzle pieces and inviting the viewer to 'play along' in solving the mystery. As the story progresses the characters discover the evidence shown to the viewer at the start of the episode. The inspectors are aided by Dr. Sol Goldman, the medical examiner. The multi-episode story arch involves Inspector Cole investigating the murder of his wife Julia.
The show was created by Sam Baum and Dustin Thomason
Dustin Thomason
Dustin Thomason is an American writer. He co-wrote the 2004 novel The Rule of Four with his childhood friend Ian Caldwell.The Rule of Four reached the top of the New York Times Best Seller list, where it remained for more than six months. The book was a number-one national and international...
, who also serve as executive producers, and is a John Wells
John Wells (TV producer)
John Marcum Wells is an American theater and television producer, writer and director. He is best known for his role as executive producer and show runner of the television series ER, Third Watch, and The West Wing. His company, John Wells Productions, is currently based at Warner Bros. studios in...
Production in association with Warner Bros. Television
Warner Bros. Television
Warner Bros. Television is the television production arm of Warner Bros. Entertainment, itself part of Time Warner. Alongside CBS Television Studios, it serves as a television production arm of The CW Television Network , though it also produces shows for other networks, such as Shameless on...
.
The show's pilot episode premiered on Wednesday, March 22, 2006 at 10 p.m. on the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
television network. Three additional episodes were broadcast before the show was removed from the schedule due to poor ratings. The remaining four episodes were burned off
Burning off
Burning off is the low-profile airing of otherwise-abandoned unaired television programs, usually by scheduling in far less important time slots or on less important sister stations...
on Saturdays during June and July 2006.
Cast
- Orlando JonesOrlando JonesOrlando Jones is an American comedian and film and television actor. He is notable for being one of the original cast members of the sketch comedy series MADtv and for his role as the 7 Up spokesman from 1999-2002.-Early life:...
- Inspector Cayman Bishop - Rob EstesRob EstesRobert Estes is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Harry Wilson on the Teen drama 90210, as Sgt. Chris Lorenzo on the Crime drama Silk Stalkings, and as Kyle McBride on the Primetime Soap opera Melrose Place.-Career:Estes first became interested in an acting career while training...
- Inspector Sean Cole - Martin LandauMartin LandauMartin Landau is an American film and television actor. Landau began his career in the 1950s. His early films include a supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest . He played continuing roles in the television series Mission: Impossible and Space:1999...
- Dr. Sol Goldman - Anita BriemAnita BriemAnita Briem is an Icelandic actress. She is known for her role as Jane Seymour on The Tudors and her role as Hanna in Journey to the Center of the Earth.-Personal life:...
- Emily Stevens
Reception
The Evidence has an average score of 40/100 on MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
based on 24 reviews from television critics. Nancy deWolf Smith
Nancy deWolf Smith
Nancy deWolf Smith is an editor and member of the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board since 1999.- Biography :Between 1995 and 1999, Smith was editorial page editor for the Asian Wall Street Journal. Previously she was senior editor for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and has worked at National...
of The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
said that the show "deserves an award for packing the most intrigue into a first episode." deWolf Smith went on to convey her fascination with the characters, both the texture and depth of Inspector Cole due to the murder of his wife and light-hearted banter of Inspector Bishop. In writing of the secondary and guest stars for the pilot deWolf Smith said, "Even the people who make relatively brief appearances leave you wanting to know more about them." Gloria Goodale of The Christian Science Monitor
The Christian Science Monitor
The Christian Science Monitor is an international newspaper published daily online, Monday to Friday, and weekly in print. It was started in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist. As of 2009, the print circulation was 67,703.The CSM is a newspaper that covers...
found the "hook" of the show to solve the crime along with the cops doesn't really work. Goodale gave The Evidence a grade of B and said it is "another urban crime procedural peopled with hip, conflicted detectives. Still, good casting and well-paced writing give hope."
Tom Shales
Tom Shales
Thomas William "Tom" Shales is an American critic of television programming and operations. He is best known as TV critic for The Washington Post; in 1988, Shales received the Pulitzer Prize...
of The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
said that there can be vexing decisions about what to watch, citing the then-current top-rated Sunday shows The Sopranos
The Sopranos
The Sopranos is an American television drama series created by David Chase that revolves around the New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano and the difficulties he faces as he tries to balance the often conflicting requirements of his home life and the criminal organization he heads...
and Desperate Housewives
Desperate Housewives
Desperate Housewives is an American television comedy-drama series created by Marc Cherry and produced by ABC Studios and Cherry Productions. Executive producer Cherry serves as Showrunner. Other executive producers since the fourth season include Marc Cherry, Bob Daily, George W...
. Shales said that there was no indecision to be found as The Evidence is a "high-stakes heart-pounder" compared to the "lowbrow nap-maker" show Heist
Heist (TV series)
Heist is an American television series that premiered March 22, 2006, on NBC, but was almost immediately canceled due to low ratings. The series was from acclaimed director Doug Liman and revolved around professional thief Mickey O' Neil , who created a team of experts to try to pull off the...
, which premiered at the same time. Shales compared the plight of Inspector Cole to that of Richard Kimble
Richard Kimble
Dr. Richard David Kimble is the fictional character and the protagonist featured in the television series The Fugitive. He was portrayed by actor David Janssen. Dr. Kimble, who was born on March 27, 1927 in Stafford, Indiana, is a doctor falsely convicted of the murder of his wife, Helen Kimble,...
, the titular character of the television series The Fugitive
The Fugitive (TV series)
The Fugitive is an American drama series produced by QM Productions and United Artists Television that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1967. David Janssen stars as Richard Kimble, a doctor from the fictional town of Stafford, Indiana, who is falsely convicted of his wife's murder and given the death...
.
Alessandra Stanley
Alessandra Stanley
Alessandra Stanley is an American journalist. In 2003 she became the television critic for The New York Times. Stanley was previously co-chief of the paper's Moscow bureau, Rome bureau chief, and as a correspondent for Time. She is the daughter of defense expert Timothy W...
, television critic for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, was not as found of The Evidence. Among the first things she mentions is that with the show being set in San Francisco there are no Asian or gay characters, not even in the background of crowd shots of the first episode. Despite being filmed in San Francisco Stanley found the show to be "no more representative than the 1970's cop show The Streets of San Francisco
The Streets of San Francisco
The Streets of San Francisco is a 1970s television police drama filmed on location in San Francisco, California, and produced by Quinn Martin Productions, with the first season produced in association with Warner Bros...
and might as well be set in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
or Kansas City
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
." Stanley described the characters as the "too familiar" tormented guy with his buddy for comic relief.
Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
began his review by saying that five years ago, in 2001, The Evidence might have seemed compelling. That was before the CSI franchise set a new standard for the police procedural. "You'd better give the audience some kind of complicated anti-hero character study that is at least as good as what CBS is doing and maybe, quite possibly, dares to approach the level of basic cable. The Evidence offers none of that". Goodman compares the character of Inspector Cole to Adrian Monk
Adrian Monk
Adrian Monk is a fictional character portrayed by Tony Shalhoub and the protagonist of the USA Network television series Monk. He is a renowned former homicide detective for the San Francisco Police Department...
, the titular character of the cable television series Monk
Monk (TV series)
Monk is an American comedy-drama detective mystery television series created by Andy Breckman and starring Tony Shalhoub as the titular character, Adrian Monk. It originally ran from 2002 to 2009 and is primarily a mystery series, although it has dark and comic touches.The series debuted on July...
. While both characters' respective wife was murdered the obsessive-compulsive disorder
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Obsessive–compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce uneasiness, apprehension, fear, or worry, by repetitive behaviors aimed at reducing the associated anxiety, or by a combination of such obsessions and compulsions...
that Adrian Monk suffers from makes for a more interesting character than the forlorn Sean Cole. Goodman concluded his review by stating that ""The Evidence" is overwhelming that you should watch something else."
Episodes
| № | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | U.S. viewers (millions) |
|---|