The Glades: The Complete First Season

Although made for the A&E network, this breezy crime show about a Chicago police detective in Florida follows the model established by USA and FX. Detective Jim Longworth (played by Aussie actor Matt Passmore) is aggressively grating and typically unconventional—i.e., Longworth doesn't play well with others, which partly explains why he's far from his Windy City home—but he's also a sharp investigator whose approach to every case (who knew the Everglades was such a hotbed for murder?) takes a circuitous route. Callie (Kiele Sanchez), a single mom and medical student Longworth woos throughout the course of the season, nicely sums up the gumshoe's modus operandi as “irritating as many people as possible until someone confesses.” The rest is cable-summer-show routine: unusual setting (rural Florida), off-kilter characters, and lots of colorful detail around the edges of the conventional plots. Carlos Gómez costars as Carlos Sanchez, an exasperated medical examiner who is also the closest thing Jim has to a friend, while Michelle Hurd plays his boss, Colleen. Nothing too deep or even particularly memorable here, but The Glades does offer some entertaining—if also inessential—diversion. Compiling all 13 episodes from the 2011 debut season, DVD extras include select episode commentaries, behind-the-scenes featurettes, deleted scenes, and a gag reel. Optional. (S. Axmaker)