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Boss

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Andrew Jones passes his critical eye over Kelsey Grammer in Boss.

Posted 13th February 2012, 9:09pm in TV, by Andrew Jones


You may have seen at this year's Golden Globes that amongst the winners for television was Kelsey Grammer. You may have wondered what he did to win, and if this was just a case of the HFPA (Hollywood Foreign Press - cloaked scary group of people) remembering fondly his work in Cheers and Fraiser and Down Periscope, and throwing him an award because he's just so damn good, but no.

He won it for Starz's latest hour-long drama, Boss, in which Grammer plays Chicago mayor Tom Kane, who at the start of the series is diagnosed, secretly, with a debilitating disease that will effect speech, brain and motor functions, leading to hallucinations, shakes/stiff body parts and saying things he didn't want to say. As the mayor, this isn't good., so he covers it up, much like President Bartlett's MS in The West Wing. And with this realisation of his upcoming demise, Kane plans to leave a legacy in town, by taking the governor's race into his own hands, and pushing through bills and deals that'll secure him as a great leader.

The only problem? Well, his staff, the choice of governor, the current governor, his daughter, his wife, his doctor and Aldermen of the Chicago wards, specifically the most organised who plan to take him down.
In the first 8 episodes, a truncated season, a lot of stuff comes to pass, and whilst it opens in traditional Starz fashion, lots of swearing, drugs, sex - as you do - the show grew into a more focussed, wonderfully serious production. A show that allowed Grammer to really shine as the lead, offering monologues so powerful, boasting such gravitas that the award win was destiny.

As yet, Boss hasn't been picked up for UK broadcast, but Starz has committed to a second season, a full length 10 episode one which should allow the show to breath more, as the final few episodes of last season rushed some big moments and lost impact. Having said that, however, the show still managed to bring up those big "Oh my" cliffhangers and character reveals, and mostly avoided the clichés of the political drama to become something bigger, more interesting, and much more character driven. There are characters in the show that start out forgettable and work their way up to memorable, and some that get lost along the way, but there's no doubt who rules the roost.

Grammer's performance is certainly his finest work to date, and constantly demands your attention. Thankfully the rest of the show holds up around him, and it's not a one-trick pony.

If you can find it around the usual ways ('Auntie' from America), you may just find something interesting, enthralling and worth biting into with Boss. We can only hope that the second season continues in the same vein, and offers further plots as decidedly dark and intriguing as this first season.

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