Murder in the First S1-S3

This is the worst show I have ever seen, there is no humor, drama, action or anything of interest at all. A character no one cares about, who was only in one scene for a second, is killed and they plan to milk a murder no one cares about for a whole season, no way. This should have been one episode, two at the most. There are no trial scenes that should be longer than 10 minutes let alone hour after hour, episode after episode, of drivel. The writing is so bad, slow and boring it doesn't matter who the actors are this script would not work or be interesting even if meryl streep played the lead, they lost half their audience almost immediately

There's nothing new here. These characters are pulled off the shelf of the basic Hollywood police show writer. Bochco was original several years ago, but this is just running the same material through updated cameras. The lead actress over-acts everything; she has no sense of pacing, no subtlety. She's there to fill the space of the female character, and she brings nothing special to the role, whatsoever. She seems painfully obvious about just playing on the 'hot chick' motif of so-called actress. But, she's consistent with the writing and directing in general. Taye Diggs is out of his element, and can't bring most of the other 'actors' up to to a higher level. Richard Schiff is wasted in a minor role of yet another stereotype. The show has the feel of people simply fulfilling contractual obligations: very little effort behind the writing. Peopled by too many sub-par 'actors' who are either being allowed or encouraged to overplay roles, and to make sure that they don't go deep into character development. This is all about telling instead of showing. And, the stuff that is being told is stereotypical and therefore boring.

I turned off the show at the 1:30 minute mark when the female detective getting ready for work retrieves her gun: Which is lying on the top shelf of an UNLOCKED closet across from her very young daughters bedroom, where it is easily accessible by the girl, any of her friends, or anyone else in the house. What it is is not locked up in a gun safe, close to the woman's bed where she could guard it or quickly get to it if needed in the middle of the night. I hate stupidity of detail in TV shows. These kind of nit picky errors always make me wonder: If they can't get this right, what aren't they getting right about things I don't already know? The show makers already assumes I'm stupid after two minutes, so how hard will they try to get anything right at all?

I disagree with most of the other reviews. I thought it was a fine show. I'm happy to see Tommie Schlamme and the rest of the group together again. Nothing can please everybody first time out. I like getting to know the back story on the various characters, it forms more interest for me. Looks like this is a summer replacement, because when I looked it up on IMDb, the three stars are listed for 10 shows, perfect for summer, but it is certainly better than a lot of the other stuff on TV at this time. I like Taye Diggs and hope to see a lot more of Ian Anthony Dale. I don't know anything about the young leading lady, but like her for my first look, although I do agree about the gun being in a bad place, although as I said, nothing is perfect. Good luck to the show.

I applaud the fact that the show has some diversity in its cast, what with women, African-Americans, Latinos, and even a couple of reasonably positive lesbian characters, but for a show set in San Francisco it is completely ridiculous that we never, ever see a gay male character -- not a cop, not a prosecutor, not a defense lawyer, not a suspect, not a witness, nobody, ever, -- stereotypical or non-stereotypical -- throughout three seasons! Are you kidding me? That being said I found the first season's connected storyline to be very entertaining, with knock-put performances by Tom Felton and James Cromwell. The last two seasons added many more characters, some of which we really didn't need, and many sub-plots, some of which were interesting, making it a more traditional cop show, for better or worse. Taye Diggs and Kathleen Robertson are okay in the leads, not bad actors, even if they seem a bit like lightweights compared to, say, Mariska Hargitay of Law and Order SVU. Robertson's model-perfect bobbed nose can be a distraction. Rafael Sbarge, Jamie Lumer, and some other cast members make a positive impression. The scripts have their head-scratching moments, but the show is not bad. With only thirty-two episodes you can binge watch it on Hulu in a number of days.

Tried to pay attention, but I kept on waiting for something to happen. I sat there torn, thinking my time would be better spent cleaning the kitchen. This show has unbelievably, dreary dialog presented in a plodding manner. The sound level is flat. No one gets too excited until Taye Diggs slams a suspect's head into a table toward the end of the episode. We're to understand it's in frustration of both the crime and a bleed over his prospective grief over his dying wife. The show features awful music as if they can't afford to pay for a real band's current tunes. The only time the sound changed is when the show went to commercial, jarring me out of the zone. Hey, and I watched this without inebriation. The cinematography is uninventive. The plot is procedural and predictable. The show is boring. The actors portray flat, one-dimensional characters. Nobody shows an endearing quirkiness. The boss cop has no interesting behavior - no quirks there either. The writers give the actors nothing to work with and the director apparently doesn't deviate from the script. Skip this one.

I went into this thinking it was just another Law & Order clone, like a million other shows out there these days, and I suppose I was somewhat pleasantly surprised. The main detectives, played by Taye Diggs and Kathleen Robertson, don't initially seem like that great of a combination. She is a single mom who seems to have trouble with even getting a date, and he is married to a dying woman which is putting a lot of strain on his job, and that was primarily the focus of the show. The crime itself seemed to be secondary in nature, which is weird considering the name of the show, but most of time was dedicated to fleshing out the detectives and their lives. Usually, that would cheese me off; I generally only watch these for interesting homicides and those classic action scenes we all know and love, but this was an interesting change of pace. At the end I found myself wondering if Diggs was going to be alright rather than how their case was going, and I think I can live with that. I would have given the show higher marks, but I honestly do want to see a bit more action out of this first. Once they pick up the pace a little bit, this might easily turn into a new favorite.

I love Murder in the First. Other reviewers have complained about it's slow pace but I like the fact that the story takes it's time to be told. It's a cat and mouse game with lots of twists and turns. It's not a cookie cutter model of network TV (a good thing!). The characters are well developed. Taye Diggs and Katherine Robertson are an unlikely pairing but it works. The other characters complement these two and it's an interesting dynamic. Stephen Boccho is a master and it's good to see him back. I have recommended this show to my friends and family and hope it's renewed for next season. Monday night is now my favourite night for TV watching.

I agree with jseymour-23-736835. Boring. I had trouble sitting through it until the end and then the story continues next week! None of the actors brought me in to watch this. I just normally like this type of show. However there was nothing different about this procedural that would make me want to watch. The characters were not really interesting just mundane dealing with the same things we all deal with in real life. Kept waiting for the storyline to pick up but it never did. Location, another big city, is just the standard these days. I liked King and Maxwell that was in this time slot last year and it was canceled. At least it had some quirky characters. I'll be switching the channel and watching Longmire instead after Major Crimes.

First, I'm a 30 year retired cop. This excellent screenplay and acting really set me back on my heels. This is a pretty accurate show on procedures and politics. In reality the norm is heads will roll if you push as hard as these two cops do. Pressure from the top would squelch any further digging into the main bad guy. He's connected and has his entourage of people connected. Keep in mind, this is t.v. but this is one well put together show. The underlying heat between partners of the opposite sex can and does occur and it's portrayed very well by the two main actors. Their mannerisms are very accurate also in areas of interviews and interrogations. I thoroughly enjoyed the show and hope it continues with the excellent writing and cast.