"Wicked City" is yet another American procedural drama, all set to premiere on ABC on 27 October, 2015. Created by Steven Baigelman, the series' first season will focus on two LAPD detectives (Jeremy Sisto and Gabriel Luna) as they search for a pair of romantically-linked serial killers (Ed Westwick and Erika Christensen) terrorising the Sunset Strip.
CLICK HERE to watch "Wicked City" episode 1 live online.
Set in 1982 Los Angeles, the first season of "Wicked City" revolves around Kent Grainger, a man who lives by night as a serial killer. The series will focus on the brutal side of Kent while also highlighting his desire for companionship. In the premiere/ pilot episode of the season premiere of "Wicked City" Kent will find that person in the form of a single mother named Betty and he opts not to kill one night while on the prowl.
Official synopsis of the series reads (via ABC):
"Wicked City" follows a unique case set in a noteworthy era of L.A. history, starting with a murder case from 1982 centered on the rock 'n' roll, cocaine-infused revelry of the Sunset Strip. Alliances are formed to solve a serial murder case."
The first episode of Season 1 of the series has got mixed reviews, with many hoping that the show will pick up as the season proceeds.
This is what the critics have to say about Episode 1:
"To judge by the first episode, "Wicked City" compensates for some pedestrian dialogue and only-on-TV coincidences with bouts of genuinely scary intensity, and doesn't default to eruptions of gore."
"Wicked City" isn't great and you either buy into the throwback factor or not, but from what I've seen the show has a lot of good moments – and on today's Big 4 schedules, that's not bad at all.
"There's really nothing special about Wicked City's presentation. There's no visual flair or hit-you-over-the-head dialogue that really gets an audience member's blood pumping. It's merely a show telling its story in a way we've seen this story told before. Sure, watching the crime tale be told from the perspective of the killers may be a bold idea for broadcast TV, but it's certainly nothing new to the world of television (see: Dexter). It's really a shame, too, because there is a good story in Wicked City as it exists."
"Offensive, predictable and awful, 'Wicked City' hits the trifecta of bad pilot issues. ABC, which programs to women, should be embarrassed at how much this degrades its target audience — and the network."
"The premiere is drenched in an unpalatable sensationalism reminiscent of "Stalker," the cancelled CBS series from last season that was widely criticized for its voyeuristic, often misogynistic conceit. Fans of the early 1980s, if there are any, may like revisiting that era — the show, especially its soundtrack, never goes more than a few minutes without reminding you what the time period is. But anyone else may find the luridness here to be too much of a bad thing."
"Your interest and schedule may vary, but I have no time in my life for yet another desperate-to-shock serial killer drama. Particularly not one that thinks the best way to grab an audience is to open with the male killer stabbing a woman to death in his car while she's supplying oral sex, lingering long enough for us to hear her scream and see her blood splatter before moving on to show us the cops examining her now headless corpse. And yes, that head will turn up — because ABC's Wicked City is not about to pass up a cheap shock or a tired TV cliché."
"There is a mystery at the heart of "Wicked City," but it's not captured by anything that happens on screen. Actually, the confounding questions about this program are legion. Why did anyone think television needed yet another serial-killer drama? Why did someone at ABC greenlight this pallid copycat, which is almost exactly like NBC's "Aquarius," a bland retro murder mystery that aired on NBC last summer? How did "Wicked City" survive the pilot-script stage, when its groan-inducing dialogue and paper-thin characterizations were surely obvious?
But the biggest question of all is, why did anyone think this drama, which features a woman being murdered within the first few minutes, would be a good fit for ABC's aspirational and allegedly female-friendly brand? Unfortunately, nothing about "Wicked City" feels new or fresh, and that's not just because the drama is set in 1982."
"Wicked City" premieres with its pilot episode on ABC on 27 October, at 10pm.
