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Too much case-of-the-week and not enough premise-plot-time make this great show bland.

Saving Grace is a series about a jaded Oklahoma detective named Grace Hanadarko (Holly Hunter) who gets a “last chance angel” named Earl (Leon Rippy) assigned to her so she can get her act together.  They meet one night when Grace is driving drunk and runs over a convicted felon named Leon Cooley (Bokeem Woodbine) and she slurringly asks for help.  Earl appears behind her and has to jump through hoops to prove to Grace (a lapsed Catholic) that he actually is an angel.

As the season continues, Grace is constantly questioning the validity of Earl’s angel-ness and why God would be interested in her.  Ever the detective, she collects Earl’s tobacco spit, a taco, a whittled duck, etc. And brings them to her childhood friend Rhetta (Laura San Giacomo) who also happens to be a crime lab scientist.  Together, the two women try to figure out what Earl is and what his litter of clues mean.

All this happens over the course of the series with interludes into Grace’s family, crime solving by Grace and her fellow detectives, and more references to the Oklahoma City bombing than you could shake a collapsing Twin Tower at.  The real meat of the series is the fantasy/angel element.  Other than the scenarios listed above, the only other thing that happens in the show is Grace sleeping with guys.  Like a lot of guys.  Like it’s actually a major plot point.  At one point, a defense attorney parades a lineup of her hook-ups into the station house in an attempt to intimidate her and it gets really, really crowded.

Actress/producer Holly Hunter (Raising Arizona, The Incredibles) is always petite, but in Saving Grace she looks underfed.  A shame since we get to see her half-naked a lot.  And I mean a lot.  Reread the preceding paragraph, bunkies.  As usual, I enjoyed Hunters acting.  It may be because I am a native born Texan, but give me a cute chick (even one pushing fifty) with a southern drawl and I’m sucked in.  Her crooked little mouth is just a bonus.  But I digress.

Obvious comparisons to previous TV series come to mind with this premise.  But Roma Downey and Della Reese (Touched by an Angel) or Michael Landon (Highway to Heaven) have nothing on old Earl.  And it’s great that Leon Rippy (Deadwood) finally gets the screen time he deserves.  A great character actor, Rippy is totally likeable as the rigid but jovial angel Earl.  And his obsessions and attitudes are so human, sometimes he just seems like that old-timer who hangs out at bars and likes to let fellow patrons know what he thinks whether they asked him or not.

Laura San Giacomo (Just Shoot Me) affects a pretty believable southern accent.  Her Rhetta is the most likeable character in the police station.  The other detectives spend so much time horsing around and playing jokes on each other, it’s hard to believe they get any work done at all.  Grace’s dog is pretty likeable, too and goes alternately by Gus, Gussy, Gusman, and Big-Head-Gus-Head (the last one being my favorite).

One thing that struck me odd was the amount of times the characters said, “shit”.  Now I didn’t watch the show when it aired on TNT, so I don’t know if “shit” made it out on the air as part of basic cable’s current trend of pushing the content boundary, but at points it seemed forced.  Kind of like, “Hey, audience.  We talk just like real people.  Shit yeah we do!”  Don’t get me wrong, I curse like a sailor on shore leave and shit, but still it just seemed awkward.

And you know, I think I can let the whole scene of line-dancing slide, but what was with all the Texas bashing?  Do Oklahomans have that much of inferiority complex that they have to keep slinging insults at the one Texan cop?  And there’s one scene where Grace says how beautiful Oklahoma is, when you can clearly see from the shot she’s in how ugly it is.  Just sad.  (Frickin’ Okies!)  Okay.  Got that out of my system.

As for extras, there are plenty.  Funny and informative commentary from creator Nancy Miller is the only one that doesn’t seem like it was made as a promotional tool, though.  The promo pieces are mostly part of TNT’s “We Know Drama” campaign – Behind the Drama w/Holly Hunter, an Everlast video (he does the theme song), behind-the-scenes w/Leon Rippy, a series overview and a 4-minute season one recap.  Some are interesting, but repetitive, using similar interviews to pad themselves out and look fluffier.

Nancy Miller (a co-executive producer on The Closer and an executive producer on CSI: Miami) has crafted a show that falls into the somewhat recently cultivated strong-female-main-character-program.  Personally, I enjoy this trend.  Strong women make great characters, and Grace gives its title character some great lines and a believable personality.  It’s just a shame that the main plot is sometimes pushed to the side.

I don’t think I’ll be watching the show when it airs, but I have to admit, the season closer/cliffhanger has me curious to see what happens next.  But I can wait for season two to come out on DVD so I can fast-forward through the slow bits and get back to the meat.  Season one’s definitely worth a look.

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