“On Call,” streaming on Amazon Prime Video, is a half-hour police drama, lucid and unfussy. It follows a rookie cop — don’t they always? — and his by-the-book training officer on the Long Beach, Calif., police force on their patrols and interactions, not in interrogation rooms or labs, and everything is very taut if superficial.
Among its draws is that Dick Wolf is an executive producer of the show, which was created by his son Elliot Wolf and Tim Walsh. “Executive Producer Dick Wolf” is a phrase etched in the minds of TV fans, nobler perhaps in its “Law & Order”s than in its “Chicago”s or “F.B.I.”s. This series has many of his signatures: officers who take things too personally on account of their painful back stories, police lingo 101 and criminals whose clunky villainy could be ripped from a comic book. One of the big bads here is a gang member named “Maniac.” Maniac! Gee, what’s he like?
But “On Call” is not a flat procedural. Its eight episodes are largely serialized and have the tense velocity that is the raison d’être for cop shows in the first place. Its use of bodycam footage adds an air of realism and a camera-shaking chaos, and there is a healthy serving of grimy violence.
The show also cannily has its copaganda and eats it too. Harmon (Troian Bellisario) is our ethical rule-follower, embodied by her tight hairdo, who disavows police violence and tries to educate her protégé, Diaz (Brandon Larracuente), on the virtues and nuances of decency. He, too, strives for a more holistic approach. When another newbie cop seems too eager about “chasing bad guys,” Diaz is more restrained. “I guess you got to define bad guys these days,” he muses. His mom hates cops, and for good reason, so he gets it.
Veteran officers decry this approach as naïve, out of touch, enabling. The sergeant (Eriq La Salle, also an executive producer and director of several episodes) scoffs at Diaz and sighs. “I came up a million years ago when you handled your business,” he says. “Now everybody’s so woke no one wants to put [expletive] in jail.”
The abbreviated running time for “On Call” works mostly to its advantage, the current sweeping you along without time to get too distracted by, say, Lori Loughlin playing a lieutenant. This also helps the show feel less formulaic than it truly is, its rhythms less predictable.
