Send questions to askmatt@tvguidemagazine.com and follow me on Twitter!
Question: I really like the new show The Chicago Code; I am from Chicago and also love the fact that it is shot on location here. My only issue with the show is Jennifer Beals' HORRIBLE attempt at a Chicago accent (and I love her). It is especially grating when she is narrating the story. I have lived in Chicago my whole life, and I can tell you that most people do not have that Dennis Franz (or the SNL characters') accent. That is a South Side thing and only a portion of the South Side actually talks that way. I will say that Jason Clarke not only nails the South Side accent but also the whole South Side mentality of a diehard White Sox fan who hates the Cubs (Sox fans are an angry bunch). Everyone I know that has watched the show has had the same reaction to her and it almost makes the show unwatchable. What do you think? Why can't they just let her talk normally?
read more
Cheers to The Chicago Code for unleashing the bear inside Jason Clarke.
Want more Cheers & Jeers? Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine now!
The Australian actor is probably best known to American audiences as Tommy Caffee, the velvet-glove politician to Jason Isaacs' iron-fisted sibling Michael on Showtime's late, great Brotherhood. But as detective Jarek Wysocki in Fox's Windy City cop drama, he blows through crime scenes like a man on a tornado-like mission to uproot corruption. He's an instantly fascinating character, and Clarke charges him with kinetic energy.
read more
Miss The Shield? On Monday, Fox will debut Shield creator and boss Shawn Ryan's new cop drama The Chicago Code.
The series revolves around the Chicago Police Department, whose superintendent Teresa Colvin (Jennifer Beals) is in the middle of creating a task force to help to take down a corrupt city alderman Ronin Gibbons (Delroy Lindo) with possible ties to the Irish mob. Teresa tasks Det. Jarek Wysocki (Jason Clarke) and his new partner Caleb Evers (Matt Lauria) to investigate.
Check out the rest of today's news
Check out an exclusive scene from the series premiere of Chicago Code, airing Monday at 9/8c on Fox:
read more
What a week for fans of crime dramas that try to raise the bar. Two winners premiering this week are set in USA's midsection — one rural, one urban (which I'm thinking you might have heard about on Super Bowl Sunday) — and they're so good it makes you wonder why Law & Order never took its act to the heartland.
Want more Matt Roush? Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine now!
We'll be discussing the second season of FX's spectacularly entertaining Justified (returns Wednesday, 10/9c) later this week. Inspired by an Elmore Leonard character, this Kentucky-fried caper sneaks up on you, its laid-back attitude punctuated by shocks of grisly mayhem.
By contrast, Fox's muscular new The Chicago Code — from The Shield's Shawn Ryan — grabs you by the collar as it plunges headlong into a treacherous labyrinth of big-city corruption...
read more
The Chicago Code (Monday, 9/8c, Fox)
Perking up what has been a pretty dismal midseason so far, this tough, brisk police drama from The Shield's Shawn Ryan is set and filmed in Chicago, where the city's brash first female police superintendent (Jennifer Beals, cast against type) clashes with a corrupt alderman (Delroy Lindo, savoring his smooth villainy) who holds her department's purse strings. Colvin's eyes and ears on the mean streets is reckless local-legend detective Jarek Wysocki (Brotherhood's Jason Clarke), who's just been saddled with a young, earnest partner (Friday Night Lights' Matt Lauria) who's not as green as he looks. The show weaves each of their points-of-view into a compelling, muscular narrative. Please watch...
read more