This show is funny and I hope someone picks it up ...It is a good show compared to all the reality shows and deserves a chance .It would probably have higher ratings if the time slot was changed and it played another day .But it is definitely worth the time to watch . Instead of all the squeaky clean characters that normally appear on cop shows this one has real people who have screwed up and are trying to get their lives back together along with keeping their jobs and they actually work great as a team . Hopefully some station realizes that is a great way to have a show and decides to take a chance and grab it. They would probably find out it being followed by a lot more people than the networks show.

Everett Backstrom (Rainn Wilson) is the lead detective of the Special Crimes Unit of the Portland Police. He's a drunken self-destructive unhealthy mess and lives with hustler Gregory Valentine on his boat. Nicole Gravely is the young idealistic second in command. Backstrom makes fun of new age cop Peter Niedermayer. Frank Moto is the muscle of the unit. Nadia Paquet is the tech savvy French civilian. Backstrom's ex Amy Gazanian (Sarah Chalke) is the new chair of Oversight and he hates his hard-nosed small town sheriff father (Robert Forster).This is House as a cop. Rainn Wilson is fun in this role. He's the main reason I like this show. The rest of the cast is a mix bag. I like most of them with a few traces of awkwardness. I think the group chemistry would have improved over time. The hustler-friend-half-brother is an interesting relationship. The doctor is not really funny enough. Niedermayer may say some new age stuff but looks like a boy scout. Gravely looks like she could break if the bad guys push her over. No matter, I still love Rainn Wilson.

TV has been pretty boring this year with an overabundance of superhero/action SI-FI shows taking over our screens wherever we look. When I decided to watch Backstrom I found something different, I found a fresh look at the crime genera that brought in comedy with it's darkness, amazing acting, edge-of-your-seat plots, a writing to kill for.Rainn's character is portrayed to be horrible in the likeness of BBC Sherlock and Gregory House but he holds his own at the table of hateful geniuses. He is offensive, but his insults aren't prejudice seeing as he insults everybody the same wheres House could be offensive as he tended to hate on women and disabled people more than the rest. The comedy is funny in a very unique way. It's odd, dark, and often something you'll feel guilty about laughing over but you will laugh, Hysterically in fact. As each character is the show is completely different they all bring a new side of humor to the scene and each one is spot-on. As a member of the LGBT community i'm used to having maybe one, and if i'm lucky two characters that fit in my demographic but we're only a couple episodes in and we've already had an anti- stereotypical gay guy, plenty of trans characters, and an episode devoted to the crossdressing world. Needless to say, I freaking love it. Backstrom is in my opinion, the perfect show and seriously needs views so go people, go watch it.

Backstrom makes a lot out of this crime dramas obnoxious and at times amusingly, self destructive lead detective. Regrettably its not really enough to save this series from the label of "just another crime drama". The series is well acted but the recipe it draws upon has, pardon the pun, been done to death. There's nothing especially original or sophisticated about this series, that would truly set it apart.Many of the crime scenarios presented thus far, are more than a little stale and the ad-hoc detection methods employed by the lead Backstrom, are never really reconciled when the crimes are, inevitably, solved. Indeed, if you pay attention, much of Backstroms detecting is shallow and full of holes. Often its the writers decisions, not his detecting, that make him "right", when the "ah-ha" moment arrives and the villains are unmasked. The result is an "OK" series that's watchable but in no way remarkable.Six out of ten from me.