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For people who miss their TV vacations in Florida with Cougar Town in reruns: The Glades Season One

As many long time readers know, I am an insomniac of the highest order. I rarely fall asleep within the first hour of my head hitting the pillow. Due to this, a lot of my television show acquisitions occur when something is on late at night and I first watch it almost accidentally. The Glades is a perfect example of this in that I am not even sure my wife knows I have been watching it. She sleeps like the dead and misses so much great television because of it.

In the lead up to the debut of season two of The Glades, A&E started airing a fantastic promo clip wherein detective Jim Longworth, the show’s lead, temporarily interrupts a conversation with his girlfriend in order to test a theory. Right on cue, he steps a few feet away from his car then hits the auto-start button. It explodes in spectacular fashion. I must admit that the overt nature of this sequence intrigued me quite a bit, so I loaded the TiVo with several episodes of a recent marathon of The Glades. I’ve seen five of the show’s 15 episodes to date and I liked each one so much that I downgraded my recent attempt to catch up on Covert Affairs in favor of The Glades, a show I’m enjoying much more.

Describing The Glades in a manner that differentiates it from other police procedurals is a bit tricky. As such, I’ll go about this in a different manner. This show feels like a natural successor to the marvelous NBC program, Life with the reason being straightforward. Actor Matt Passmore, who portrays Longworth, forcibly reminds me of Life lead Damian Lewis. And the deaths investigated on this show are just as quirky as the ones from Life. Oddly, there is also a bit of a Pushing Daisies vibe as well. I say this because Lost’s Kiele Sanchez and Passmore portray characters clearly destined to be together and everyone knows it yet circumstances prevent their coupling. In the case of Pushing Daisies, the issue was a potentially fatal outcome from necrophilia. In the case of The Glades, Sanchez’s Callie Cargill is a prison bride. Her husband is incarcerated and she has filed for divorce but her son keeps asking her not to do it. Yes, this is standard television fare but the episodes I’ve seen of The Glades thus far have kept it fresh and engaging.

A&E has a storied track record of impeccable programming. While unheralded as of yet by the mainstream media, The Glades is yet another triumph for them. With season two only a couple of episodes in and the network so willing to show re-runs of prior episodes, you can catch up on the entire arc of the series in a week or two if so inclined. This is what I’m doing and I’ve been quite pleased with the results thus far.

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