NBC's Line of Fire premieres tonight with two reviews that praise and condemn the same scenes
Peter Krause has led six television series since 1998, and the seventh arrives tonight with two reviews that cancel each other out. Neither critic had the decisive figure: the showrunner has already broken a typical episode down by percentage, and the number explains exactly where the two of them parted company.
Two reviews went up within an hour of each other Monday morning, twelve hours before the 10 p.m. debut. Aramide Tinubu at Variety concluded that NBC "has a gem on its hands." Dave Nemetz at TVLine gave it a C- and called it a misfire. Both saw the same two episodes of ten.
The show comes from Joshua Safran, who created Quantico and ran the Gossip Girl reboot, and grew out of what executive producer Jenna Bush Hager brought to the room: she spent her father's presidency inside a Secret Service detail. The Hollingsworths are five people across four federal agencies. Krause plays Mike, an agent a week from retirement; Hope Davis is Jane, his estranged wife, a U.S. Marshal.
They collide hardest over one scene: the pilot's family dinner at Jane's house, where daughter Clare finally produces the boyfriend she has been hiding. Tinubu calls that dinner "chaotic and hilarious" and writes that afterward "the audience gets a full sense of who these people are." Nemetz watched the same table and found the performances "a little bland across the board" and the siblings' jabs unable to land.
The showrunner has put a number on it
Neither critic missed the soapiness; they assigned it opposite value. Tinubu describes "a hint of soapiness that works perfectly within the genre." Nemetz calls the show "soapy to a fault and completely removed from reality," pointing at Hollingsworths who commit ethical breaches with nobody above them noticing. Safran has costed the mix out loud.
"I'd say it's like every episode is probably 40% case of the week, 50% family drama, and 10% mythological." — Joshua Safran
That ratio explains the split better than either verdict does. Safran told TV Insider he had never made a family show — Quantico, Smash and Gossip Girl ran on found families rather than blood — and that becoming a parent late sent him looking for what one looks like now. Half the hour was always going to be the marriage, the favouritism and the secrets. Tinubu reviewed that half approvingly; Nemetz reviewed the other half and found it overcrowded.
Krause sorts it the way Safran does. "People talk about the procedural elements of it, but I think of it more as a family show with procedural elements," he said of a marriage in which the pair "definitely have some unresolved issues, not just one."
The second fault line is volume. Tinubu counts bank robberies, cartel killings and White House trouble as cases worth watching on their own, sharpened by the conspiracy underneath. Nemetz counts the same material and sees three shows fighting over one hour.
- Mike (Peter Krause) — Secret Service, days from retirement
- Jane (Hope Davis) — U.S. Marshal, separated from Mike
- Clare (Kat Cunning) — FBI, refuses to close the case
- Micah (Tommy O'Brien) — Secret Service, seeing the president's daughter
- Russ (Taylor Bloom) — Justice Department analyst, newest hire
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What Krause is coming back from
This is the seventh series Krause has carried since 1998, and the first since Fox wrote Captain Bobby Nash out of 9-1-1 during season 8 last year. Before that: Sports Night, Six Feet Under, Dirty Sexy Money, Parenthood, The Catch — prestige drama or warm ensemble, almost never procedural. At 58 he reaches the format through a show billed as a family drama wearing a badge.
The last disagreement is the one the pilot ends on. Nemetz calls the twist "laughably ludicrous" and says it worsens the longer you think about it; Tinubu never mentions it. Safran's answer is that thinking about it is the point, because the reveal is not coming soon: "There's a lot of road, so we're just trying to take the road carefully. We are not speeding."
"Line of Fire misses the mark, bogged down by too much plot, not enough character, and one particularly ludicrous twist." — Dave Nemetz, TVLine
So tonight settles less than either review implies. Two episodes is not a season, and the element they are arguing over is the one Safran says he intends to withhold. Line of Fire premieres Monday at 10 p.m. ET on NBC.
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