Third Watch – Summer DVD Review – Welcome To Camelot

Third Watch

Third Watch
Welcome to Camelot

Original Air Date: Sep 23, 1999

Brittany Frederick – Staff Writer
brittanyfrederick @thetwocentscorp.com

I have to admit: I’m a cop show junkie, and I’ve seen almost all of them – except for Third Watch. John Wells shows just don’t do it for me and I’ve disliked him ever since it was said he tried to plagiarise from Homicide, which is probably my all-time favorite cop show. Imagine my surprise to find out that Wells and Edward Allen Bernero (the guy behind CBS’ Criminal Minds) created an exceedingly well-cast, sharply written crime drama.

Of course, there’s no better place to start talking about a great show than at the beginning…especially with Third Watch.

In the very first scene, the audience is wisely introduced to the show’s best character. NYPD Officer Maurice “Bosco” Boscorelli (Jason Wiles) spends the next couple of minutes in a foot chase with a known juvenile delinquent, while his longsuffering partner, Officer Faith Yokas (Molly Price) is left to follow behind in their squad car. Bosco finally closes on his man, only to see him dive for cover into the squad of fellow officer John “Sully” Sullivan (Skipp Sudduth). Sully isn’t likely to rend the poor kid limb from limb as Bosco is, and the kid knows it. We know it when Bosco proceeds to have a first-rate meltdown arguing with Sully over not getting to rend the kid into pieces. (In fact, he spends the whole episode about ten seconds from snapping.) With his constant energy and amazing ability to convey emotion and thought in his facial expressions and body language, Jason Wiles is a revelation. I had picked up this series primarily to watch a pre-Burn Notice Coby Bell, but it was Wiles who made me go “Who is this guy and why haven’t I heard of him?” He basically steals the entire show, and so embodies the role it’s as if it was written for him.

Meanwhile, heading to the scene of a car accident are paramedics Kim Zambrano (Kim Raver, much more bearable here than she was on 24) and Bobby Caffey (Bobby Cannavale). Longtime partners and best friends, they work well together but also drive each other a bit nuts personally, especially when it comes to Kim’s constant complaining about firefighter Jimmy Doherty (Eddie Cibrian), the ex she’s still hung on. Don’t ask me why, as – while more tolerable than most of Cibrian’s acting performances – Jimmy comes off like a cocky jerk who struggles to be a decent father to their son Joey. Kim and Bobby are balanced out by the other team of paramedics, the veteran Monte “Doc” Parker (Michael Beach) and new kid Carlos Nieto (Anthony Ruivivar from the late, great Traveler). Doc is the more altruistic one while Carlos couldn’t be more self-involved…or at this moment in time, clueless. The paramedics do their best to tend to multiple victims at the accident site.

And who’s directing traffic around said accident site? Bosco. God help the guy who dares insist that he needs to get through. It’s a scene where you can see that Bosco enjoys his job a little too much. Yet he and Yokas are equally prepared to bust the drunk driver who caused the accident when they find her at a bar a few minutes later.

Back at the 55th Precinct – also known as Camelot since it sits at the intersection of King and Arthur – Sully finds out that he’s getting a rookie for a partner. Not just any rookie, but Ty Davis, Jr. who is the son of Sully’s former partner, who was killed in the line of duty. It’s an awkward relationship on so many levels. It’s literally Ty’s first day on the job and the partnership gets off to a rocky start as he wants to do everything exactly by the rules only to find out that theory and practice are two separate things. There’s also their long history and the unsettling rumor that the elder Davis may have been a dirty cop. Coby Bell is even better here than he is in Burn Notice (and with more hair), largely because he has a lot more material to sink his teeth into as one of the stars of the show. It’s hard to believe that Third Watch was his first major acting job (he was only 24 at the time). Skipp Sudduth looks and acts like a real cop that you could actually run into, and gives the show a certain authenticity on that alone. Their pairing is probably my favorite of the series, as they always seem to click together.

What follows is a series of character-developing assignments: Ty gets his first call breaking up drunks outside a strip club; Doc and Carlos get to climb 46 flights to help out at a restaurant fire that’s mostly been averted; Kim and Bobby tend to a passed-out junkie; and Bosco continues to nurse his anger-management problem as he and Yokas respond to a prowler call.

The action really gets interesting when everyone responds to a massive fire. Bosco, for all his attitude, is willing to rush into the burning building without a second thought. He saves the life of a mother and daughter trapped inside. Yokas is right on his heels. Doc is horrified to see a woman throw her newborn baby out the window and barely catches the child. He might be a complete jerk, but Jimmy is willing to do anything he needs to in order to put out the fire as quickly as possible. We see all our main characters working together at their best, and we see the worst: later on, veteran paramedic Jerry is shot in front of Doc and Carlos, despite the best efforts of Ty and Sully, and fights for his life as the episode ends.

Any of these subplots would be enough to be their own episode of another series, but Third Watch makes them all work in one. The show’s biggest strength, however, is its uniformly strong ensemble cast. It’s hard to believe Jason Wiles is only three years removed from the horrible dialogue he had to spit out as a drug addict on Beverly Hills, 90210; here, he’s the show’s breakout star. On his heels is the impressive rookie performance of Coby Bell, whose Ty Davis is the heart of the show. Both are backed up by more than capable partners, and the rest of the cast is just as good. None of these actors are big names (in fact, sadly, most of them still aren’t) but it makes it all the easier to believe them in their roles. They are aided by stories that furnish time for each and every character, and a unique time and place – New York becomes a character in the series, and how many series take place between 3-11 PM? This was the night shift before CSI made it popular. Frankly, it’s a lot better done than that show, too. The only question I have is how was this show on for six years and I never noticed?

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