There have been a wide variety of police- and detective-focused shows over the years, and a ton that don’t fit the typical mold lately. Consider the likes of Awake, Elementary, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, shows that have almost nothing in common besides the idea of investigating crimes.
CBS’ Battle Creek doesn’t have the unconventional premise of those other shows, as it’s not featuring multiple worlds or Sherlock Holmes and isn’t primarily a comedy; at its core, it’s just about small-city police work. Despite that, creator Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul) and showrunner David Shore (House, NYPD Blue), along with stars Dean Winters and Josh Duhamel, have managed to give us something fascinating and unique in Battle Creek, a relatively serious and realistic procedural that also provides plenty of humor and explores new ground within a well-known format.
Perhaps the most essential part of the show, and what makes it so remarkable, is the relationship between Winters’ and Duhamel’s characters. Winters plays Detective Russ Agnew of the Battle Creek police department, while Duhamel is Special Agent Milton Chamberlain of the FBI, dispatched to budget-strapped Battle Creek to help out the local cops (perhaps for other reasons as well). Having contrasting characters play off each other isn’t exactly unique (see all the various iterations of The Odd Couple, which is also currently airing on CBS), and we’ve seen it in the world of cop shows too, but these characters are so well-developed and bounce off each other on so many fronts that you wouldn’t necessarily expect that it works very well.
In that respect (and also with the undercurrent of humor throughout), it’s somewhat reminiscent of Due South (which Shore wrote for and helped produce). The sheer detest Agnew shows for Chamberlain throughout the early episodes is even stronger than what we’ve seen in most unlikely-pairing stories, though.
Agnew has some elements of typical police characters, from his gruff exterior to his belief in old-fashioned police work to his distrust of new-school Chamberlain to his willingness to work outside of the rules, but those separate parts coalesce to make him unique. That’s particularly true once we find out more about his family background in the most recent episode, April 12’s “Mama’s Boy.” Chamberlain’s high-tech solutions have also been seen before, as has his charm, but he still comes off as a fascinating character given his mix of beliefs (relying on technology while still trusting people), his outsider status in Battle Creek and the only-slightly-explored backstory that got him to this point.
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The mixes of personality traits here also mean that Agnew and Chamberlain bounce off each other in interesting ways; in particular, Agnew’s distrust leads to him undertaking a complicated investigation of Chamberlain’s past (and roping in others along the way), while Chamberlain is willing to look past the rules Agnew breaks and the trouble he creates because of his detecting skill.
Gilligan, Shore and the others involved in writing Battle Creek deserve a lot of credit for creating these characters, but it’s the performances from Winters and Duhamel that really bring them to life. It’s also notable that while the actors incorporate angles from parts they’ve played before (in particular, Winters’ portrayal of Agnew occasionally brings to mind elements of Dennis Duffy or Allstate’s Mayhem), they’ve still come up with something quite new.
It also helps that the show isn’t all about the case of the week. There’s sufficient screen time to explore these characters’ personal lives and stories, whether that’s Agnew’s attempts to flirt with office manager Holly Dale (played by Audrey Dollar; his attempts to decode whether he drunkenly sent her flowers are particularly funny) or Chamberlain watching sports at his decked-out apartment with a witness.
The wider cast boosts this show as well. Kal Penn makes the most of the screen time he gets as Detective Fontanelle White (Agnew’s partner pre-Chamberlain), with his attempt to bust his crooked medical marijuana dealer (with Chamberlain’s help) proving particularly funny. Janet McTeer’s Commander Guziewicz has shown some interesting dimensions so far, especially in the “Old Flames” episode that saw her house burned down. Dollar and Edward Fordham Jr. (who plays Detective Aaron Funkhauser) have contributed as well, and there have been some terrific performances from guest stars, including Patton Oswalt as the city’s Rob Ford-esque mayor and Candice Bergen as Agnew’s convicted con-artist mother. Battle Creek wisely keeps most of the focus on the central pairing of Agnew and Chamberlain, but it’s shown a skillful touch in when to look at other characters and how to bounce them off the main detectives.
What’s also interesting about Battle Creek is the setting. The real-life city of Battle Creek has 52,347 people, so it’s a small city. That seems to be portrayed well in the show; it’s a big enough area that they’re not constantly in the same locations and that there’s enough serious crime to justify a FBI presence (double murders, meth and heroin have shown up so far), but there’s still a bit of a small-town feel, which adds to the questions about why Chamberlain was dispatched there. There are also some localized geographic issues that show up, such as the cereal breakfast (Battle Creek is the headquarters of Kellogg’s) and the maple syrup cartel. (The latter is responsible for a gorgeous “cooking” sequence that brings back memories of the ones Gilligan used on Breaking Bad.)
We’ve seen lots of big-city police shows and some small-town ones, but it’s rare to see something set in between, especially in a less-than-well-known Michigan city. That allows the show to use elements of both big-city and small-town work, though, which is the perfect fit.
As with the rest of the show, the setting is a combination of somewhat-familiar elements, but put together in a new way that feels unique. Serious and yet funny, Odd Couple and yet far from it, focused on its central pairing and yet incorporating a wider cast, guest stars and a different setting, Battle Creek contains multitudes. Perhaps the easiest thing to say about it is that it’s worth watching.
