TNT’s immersion in the cop-show genre runs deep, from “The Closer” to “Rizzoli & Isles.”
Its newest entry into this category, “Murder in the First,” follows that tradition, with a twist — it tracks a single murder investigation over the course of an entire season.
Premiering Monday at 10 p.m., “Murder in the First” stars Taye Diggs (“Private Practice”) and Kathleen Robertson as San Francisco homicide detectives Terry English and Hildy Mulligan. They’re investigating two seemingly unrelated murders when they discover a common denominator: a Silicon Valley wunderkind played by Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy in the “Harry Potter” films).
Diggs says the serialized storyline (compared to most close-ended police procedurals) gave him more time to get into the role, and offers the audience more time to become invested in the case’s characters and details.
“I think sometimes it’s a little bit more fun to relish certain clues and certain twists and turns that a season avails you, as opposed to the open-close situation [from] 45 minutes of TV,” he tells The Post.
“Murder” hails from creator Steven Bochco, the legendary producer behind such cop shows as “Hill Street Blues” and “NYPD Blue.” The first 10-episode season will span a few months, following the murders and investigation, the trial and the aftermath — and will delve into the detectives’ personal lives. (Hildy is a divorced single mom while Terry is dealing with his wife’s terminal cancer.)
The short (10-episode) season was appealing for Diggs because it allowed him to split time between filming in California and his home in New York, where he has a four-year-old son from his marriage to Broadway actress Idina Menzel. It’s also a return to playing a cop for the actor, who starred as a detective in the short-lived ABC series “Day Break” in 2006.
“As a kid you grow up wanting to play cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians,” Diggs says. “So there obviously was that hard-wired appeal.”
To further get into the role, he spent time with police officers in San Francisco (where “Murder” was partially filmed) to gain insight into the psyche of his character, whose anger issues are set off by his wife’s illness.
“It takes a very specific type of person to be a policeman, the amount that you have to suppress and how you release that,” he says. “So you add to that kind of lifestyle something crazy and as severe as a death in the family, especially when it’s your wife, you’re going to see a person kind of lose control in areas that they practice keeping control.
“That was something that was interesting to play with as an actor.”