'Countdown' and 'Ballard' Prove Amazon Is Still the Home of Dad Shows

Two more shows about the LAPD and I still can't get enough

Maggie Q. The Q stands for Qool. Tyler Golden/Prime

I’m sort of on vacation this week, so I’m going to keep this newsletter even shorter than usual. I don’t even have much to say about these two shows, besides that I’m watching them and they embody the spirit of Dad Shows.

Countdown and Ballard are both Prime Video crime dramas set in Los Angeles that premiered in the past few weeks. It’s funny that they released two shows as similiar-ish so close to each other, but for whatever reason, that’s what they did. Countdown premiered on June 25 and is doing weekly releases, and Ballard dropped all at once on July 9. I’ve seen five episodes of Countdown and one of Ballard. I plan to keep watching both of them, but Ballard is clearly the stronger of the two.

Countdad

A few months ago, I wrote about how HBO Max’s The Pitt and Prime Video’s On Call were redefining procedurals for streaming. It turns out I was a little bit early. On Call was an L.A.-area cop drama developed by Law & Order and Chicago creator Dick Wolf, but it was a half-hour drama that incorporated body-cam footage and other non-standard camera work. It was formally different from traditional broadcast network crime dramas in a way that, to me, felt familiar but fresh. It got canceled after one season. Apparently people who want to watch a broadcast-style police procedural are not interested in inventive formats. They might be looking for something like Countdown, which, except for some F-words, feels the most like a traditional broadcast crime drama of any streaming series I’ve ever seen.

The final Countdown. Elizabeth Morris/Prime

Everything about it, from the actors (Supernatural’s Jensen Ackles¹ leads the cast) to the broadly drawn characters (he’s a maverick cop with a secret) to the fast pace to the plot (he and his team are trying to stop a nuclear bomb from going off in Los Angeles) are things that would be in a show you’d find on CBS or NBC or Fox. The show it most reminds me of is 24, not because it’s hour-by-hour, but because the characters are pursuing one seasonlong goal but have to take episodic steps in order to achieve that goal. Like for one episode, Jensen has to go back into the prison where he did an undercover mission in order to get intel about the nuke plot from an inmate.

As a show, I really don’t have too much to say about it. I don’t think it’s very good, but I don’t mind watching it. There have been a million shows like it, and they keep making shows like it because it works. The most unique thing about it is that all 13 episodes are written by one person, creator Derek Haas, who previously created Chicago Fire. He’s a one-man writer’s room.

Dad Shows: Legacy

Ballard is a spinoff of Bosch: Legacy, itself a spinoff of Bosch that from what I understand was just Bosch with a lower budget. I must confess that I only watched a little bit of Bosch and it was so long ago that I barely remember it. So Ballard, to me, is a new show. Whatever connections it has to Bosch are lost on me, but that’s totally fine. Knowing Bosch lore is not at all necessary for enjoying Ballard. It’s just a straightforward, well-made crime drama. Maggie Q is an LAPD detective banished to the cold case division, where she continues to make her bosses mad with her dogged pursuit of justice. She doesn’t do things the way they want her to; she does them the way they should be done.

It’s a well-written show that has empathy and edge at the same time. There’s a great scene where Ballard finds out that a volunteer investigator helping out the unit believes she has intuitive powers that border on psychic ability, and Ballard immediately calls her into her office and tells her — kindly but firmly — not to talk about it, because if a defense attorney found out she used “psychic powers” in the investigation they would use that against the unit. Ballard is just good. It’s a lunch pail crime drama that plays the game the right way. I’m going to keep watching for sure. I probably won’t go back and watch Bosch — it’s too late for that — but I’ve found a back door into the Boschverse.

As long as Prime Video keeps making Dad Shows, I’m gonna keep watching them. I’m even gonna watch The Terminal List: Dark Wolf, the Taylor Kitsch-led spinoff of the Chris Pratt SEAL drama from three years ago. I’m in deep. I live for this shit. Dad Shows.

1. An earlier version of this post mixed up Jensen Ackles with his Supernatural brother Jared Padalecki. I regret the error, and will be watching all 327 episodes of Supernatural back-to-back Clockwork Orange style as penance.