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On Sunday night, BBC America debuts its first-ever original scripted series, “Copper,” an authentic-looking 1864 period drama.
No, it’s not about the old West, the Civil War or wagon trains.
It’s about old New York City, and it makes “Deadwood” look like a light-opera version of “Gunsmoke.” Or, at least, the sets do.
The series is a collaboration between some of TV’s greatest creators: Oscar and Emmy-winning director Barry Levinson (“Homicide”), three-time Emmy winner Tom Fontana (“Homicide”), studio president Christina Wayne (“Mad Men,” Breaking Bad”) and writer Will Rokos, (“Southland”).
That lineup plus the resources of the BBC guarantees “Copper’s” success, right? Not necessarily.
Don’t get me wrong. There really are some great things about “Copper.” For starters, what you will learn about olde New York will amaze you.
If you remember “Gangs of New York” in which overacting ham Daniel Day-Lewis got to once again put on funny hats and adopt a terrible accent, then you know about Five Points, where the series takes place.
In the 1860s, the neighborhood looked like the Old West. Tenements would have seemed like mansions compared to the wooden hovels where dozens of people lived together in single rooms without sanitation and loaded with vermin.
The series centers on a city detective, Irish immigrant Kevin Corcoran (Tom Weston-Jones), who is desperately seeking his wife, who has disappeared, possibly with the murderer of his young daughter.
Corcoran has a love-hate relationship with rich boy Robert Morehouse (Kyle Schmid) a drunk with whom he served in the Civil War. They both have a love/love relationship with Dr. Matthew Freeman (Ato Essandoh), an African-American who was Morehouse’s valet in the Civil War and saved his life by cutting off his leg.
Into the mix are Corcoran’s colleagues, Francis (Kevin Ryan) and Andrew (Dylan Taylor). Five Points also has more hookers than Vegas, including Francis’ girlfriend, Molly (Tanya Fischer), and Eva (Franka Potente), a very busy madam. In the madonna role is Anastasia Griffith as Elizabeth Haverford, a good woman married to a pedophile rich guy.
The scenes are always gritty and often very violent, which makes great TV. However, the dialogue? Whew. I mean, seriously? “She is waiting for you with breath bated!”
Then there’s the acting by both Schmid, who can’t get those olde English phrases out without sounding silly (who could?), and Fischer, who always seems to follow her dopey lines by putting her fingers to her lips like the devil spawn of “Lolita” and MacCauley Culkin.
Most annoying, however, is the use of phrases that weren’t invented in 1864. Like? Like, “hang in there” (a baseball expression) and, worse, “No s – – t.” which comes from “No s – – t Sherlock.” Just for the record? Sherlock Holmes didn’t appear until 1887.
No s – – t.