User Reviews

I started watching this after two episodes had already been broadcast. Had to play catchup with on-demand from my cable provider.

The show works for what it does, and is. These cops are chasing stalkers, and that entails a dark atmosphere that puts many base, irrational (and sometimes homicidal) human urges on display. The show is on at 10:00 pm for good reason.

Maggie Q is the team lead Beth Davis, a strong woman and a good cop. As well, there is a haunted quality to the character, as the audience learns as the show proceeds. It comes out, in time, that Beth herself has been stalked.

Maggie is more of an action heroine, in my opinion. She is asked to portray someone similar to Mariska Hargitay's character in Law and Order SVU. I think Olivia Benson may have been an archetype for Beth Davis. The CBS writers could have done far worse, if this is indeed the case.

If you want a show that mostly keeps it light, watch Castle. If you want NCIS and all the head slapping that comes with that show, by all means, keep Mark Harmon and company in the well paid manner to which they have become accustomed.

If you want something as dark as Law and Order SVU, with a bit of a twist... give this a shot.

One last point. The network has ordered a full season of the show. Someone was apparently trolling the IMDb.com boards saying the show had already been canceled.

Tim Surette at the site TV.com has an article showing this order.

New York Detective Jack Larsen (Dylan McDermott) relocates to Los Angeles and joins a special squad led by icy Detective Beth Davis (Maggie Q) which investigates serious cases of stalking. The two don't exactly hit it off but quickly come to respect each other's expertise in hunting stalkers.

Where the show diverges from a normal police procedural is in exploring personal habits of each protagonist which evoke behaviours of the people they deal with on cases.

Larsen is stalking his ex Amanda (Elisabeth Rohm) and her son which he believes to be his. This is the reason for his transfer from one coast to another. He has followed the woman and her child to Los Angeles but has, for obvious, concealed his true motives to the police department and his new partner Davis.

Davis is less overt with Larsen and with the audience but it seems pretty clear she was the victim of a stalker. Her victimization has had the effect of giving her empathy with victims of such crime whilst also giving her darker impulses the motive to victimize stalkers by means both legal and illegal.

Unlike most network shows we have edgier heroes in this series which make it more like a cable show - audiences of which network TV is struggling to win back. Much of the hyperbole and vitriol directed at the comes in reaction to the violence and the darker aspects of the main characters.

It would be cynical to suggest that allies of opposing TV networks might formulate a campaign to discredit the show on the grounds that the gender of many of the victims could invite accusations of pandering to misogyny.

Cynicism is normal in considering both why some shows are on the air and why some get the criticism they do. The viewer can judge for themselves rather than avoiding programs based solely on the assertions presented by others.

I hate Dylan McDermott's character, He's supposed to be part of the stalker squad but he's stalking his ex-lover because he thinks her child is his. There are plenty of legal things he could do to see his son, stalking is not the answer given what he does for a living. Between that and his characterization, he doesn't (to me) have a whole lot of redeeming qualities.

I like Maggie Q and have ever since I saw her in the Die Hard movie. I was glad to see she got a lead role like this one. My problem has to do with the writers. She supposedly has been stalked before herself, and yet she lives in a home with see-through curtains; waits to close the curtains the first time we see her in her house until after she's gotten ready for bed; the window locks are child's play and the chain on the door is an absolute joke. I've never been stalked and I take more precautions. I know she's a cop with a gun and can handle herself, but if she's gripping a chair with her nails while listening to a stalking report, she's not over it and she's not going to live in a place she can't button up and black out peepers.

Over all the show is one I'm willing to give at least another episode or two. Handled right, it could be the next Criminal Minds - but Dylan's character has to be overhauled. He's no Thomas Gibson.

Stalker, as a subject matter, holds great promise for a TV-series. Stalker the actual TV-series seems to be trying too hard to make a big splash. The initial scene is an gasoline drenched murder, by, you guessed it, a young woman's stalker. It is actually a fairly sadistic trap, if rather "wam, bam" and over. Seemingly, this is also to make a point: this show is about some seriously evil sick bastards.

Time to meet the the characters. Maggie Q (fashion model cum actress, usually not a good combo) plays detective Beth Davis who is head of the, yes you're good, LA Staking Unit. A silly lecture (college students at some institution?) introduces viewers to her. I didn't like this scene because it was staged in a silly way and the cream of the brightest minds asked stupid questions shouting over one another. Next the show segues into the morning after the gas murder. Flat, rude, and flat come to mind as detective's personality is purposely without emotion (flat), cold to a fault (rude), and she's proud she doesn't need to wear a bra (flat).

Just as this is sinking in comes new transplanted detective Jack Larsen played by Dylan McDermott. After the mandatory "un-welcome" by detective Davis we quickly see this guy is the new Sherlock Holmes who can deduce a complex profile of a victim by osmosis or some skill set. Too bad he's immediately unlikeable because even though Sherlock Holmes was a bit of a narcissist at least he was lovable. This was not unlike the character trait of McDermott's last role in the one-season show Hostages, only is seemed much necessary there. The two other people under detective Davis are glossed over, though the somewhat attractive woman wants to throw herself on detective Larsen, apparently. Please.

In what seems like being beat over the head viewers are "forced" to get that detective Davis doesn't like detective Larsen, but when she goes through her own nightly ritual she has to give him credit for his superb criminal intuition. It seems detective Davis is not only a stalking specialist, but maybe she does this because this is her own personal fear - but how she handles her fears may be deeply rooted even more than her career choice and nightly protocol of sealing herself in? There's plot holes, but the good is that the story here (and each week?) moves so fast it keeps the viewer invested. While fast the details of who is involved in the crime comes slower and linearly. Again, this keeps one interested. Surprisingly, this fast/slow method works better than the quick character intros. And sure, you guessed it again, there's much more to the main characters of Beth and Jack. In the last minutes much is revealed. Beth is pro-active when she's not on duty in a bit of stalking herself, confronting perps head on if you will, fearlessly even. And Jack? Well, his move to LA was due to some "mistakes" he made. He had an affair, he lost his family, and he wants to be close to where his ex moved so he can once more have a relationship with his son. He might be more sympathetic than arrogant, but that remains to be seen.

This is network TV. It needs to move differently than HBO or Showtime series, and it does. It started pedestrian, though with an excellent premise of exploring the criminal behavior of abhorrent stalkers. It was quick to give payoffs which kept one watching, and it got better. It isn't clear if this is going to be even a good series at this point, but I'm going to keep watching to see and you should too.

This show suffers from ridiculous dialogue, exaggerated plot lines and cookie cutter characters. I have no idea where the high IMDb ratings came from, because this show is so awful.

SPOILER!!!!!! (specific review of the first episode)

For example, the scene where the new detective (McDermott) is assigned to the stalking squad. It's his first day on the job and he is asked by his new superior (Maggie Q, playing the 'seen it a million times' tough, loner cop character) why he chose this particular unit. He answers "I was hoping to meet Scarlett Johansson." He doesn't seem to notice her disgusted reaction, and continues with jokes about training for the job by watching Fatal Attraction and other stalker films. NO ONE could be this stupid, especially a decorated detective!

But apparently he IS that stupid, because afterward he asks his new superior why she doesn't like him, and wonders aloud if maybe it was because he was staring at her chest earlier. In his defense, he explains that he really thought that she would be flattered that he was staring at her chest, because she was wearing red nail polish. Um, what???

The plot line of the first episode is equally ridiculous. It has 2 ordinary guys with good jobs (and who barely know each other), come together to stalk 2 different girls. They murder one girl and try to kill the other - by dousing them with gasoline and setting them on fire. This isn't stalking, and I guess that the show writers can't come up with an original idea, because it looks like a storyline right out of Criminal Minds.

As if the show wasn't ridiculous enough already, you find out at the end of the first episode that the new detective to the stalking unit is a stalker himself. Yep! In fact that is why he took the new job, to be in the same city as the woman he is stalking.

If this show trying to be ridiculous, then it deserves 10 stars. Otherwise, they should cancel it and put it out of its misery as soon as possible.

***UPDATE***

Since I reviewed the show after only a single episode, I decided to give it another chance in case my opinion was too perfunctory. Unfortunately the second episode is not any better and confirms my original impression. McDermott's character is as creepy and oblivious as ever, and the storyline of the second episode was just as ridiculous as the first. As other reviewers have mentioned, the "stalkers" on this show are in fact murderers and kidnappers, so their cases would never be assigned to the stalker unit. The unit would also be investigating multiple cases at once, instead of assigning all of their agents to one case - imagine the backlog! There are also spontaneous confessions of the guilty parties which never happen in real life. This show is made for gullible teenagers - if that isn't you I'd skip it.

I didn't really have any strong feelings either way about the show until the third episode. Granted, Maggie Q is the main reason for my watching Stalker in the first place. But the latest episode really explores much deeper into the life of Jack Larsen (by Dylan McDermott). The last scene with Jack standing outside the windows watching (stalking?) his ex-wife was sensitive and moving to the point where I was on the verge of tearing- up. Without spoiling anything, the episode also disclosed some dynamics about the lead the actors/actresses that made viewers want to delve straight into the next episode because the plot would likely be very intriguing. So far, it is a great show and I hope the next episodes won't disappoint either.