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In Plain Sight - Season 1 An amusing
blend of cop show action and dysfunctional
family fireworks, the comedy-drama In Plain
Sight benefits greatly from the charisma of
its lead, Mary McCormack, as well as some
promising episodes in this first-season set. TV
and film vet McCormack (The West Wing,
Murder One) finally gets a lead as Mary
Shannon, a U.S. Marshal working in the
Albuquerque office of the Witness Protection
Program. The array of offbeat characters that
fall under Mary’s jurisdiction--everyone from
innocent witnesses of terrible crimes to less
scrupulous types like Dave Foley’s obnoxious mob
squealer (“Trojan Horst”) to a diamond smuggler
(Missi Pyle) with wedding fever (“Never the
Bride”)--present less problems for her than her
family, which includes her overly dramatic mom
(Lesley Ann Warren) and troublemaking sister
(Nichole Hiltz), who has designs on Mary's
on-again-off-again boyfriend (Cristian de la
Fuente). Frederick Weller (as her quirky
partner) and Paul Ben-Victor as her boss offer
solid support, but In Plain Sight is
McCormack’s showcase, and she shines in both the
comic moments and more serious elements, most
notably a confessional monologue in “High Priced
Spread.” One wishes the scripts lived up to the
performances--too often, the program coasts on
glib dialogue, or worse, heavy-handed voice-overs--but
these are fixable problems in the face of
considerable potential. All 12 episodes of the
first season are included in the three-disc set,
as well as brief deleted scenes from each
episode. --Paul Gaita |
