White Collar might have the most boring premise you could possibly imagine, done over so many times that the basic concept seems fit for the waste basket. Tell me if you ever watched anything with the buddy cop formula before. Boom, there’s White Collar in its entirety. One guy, Peter Burke, is a white collar crime expert; the other, Neil Caffrey, is a white collar criminal who ends up in FBI custody solving crimes. In a surprise to literally no one, they end up slowly striking a friendship during their deduction of mysteries and witty repartee. People who do bad things get caught because our heroes remain so awesome, and the case-of-the-week ends up solved with a tinge of greater show mythology to come. Pretty standard stuff, right?
And yet, I find White Collar hightly entertaining as a piece of pure fluff entertainment. Much like Burn Notice provided its own thrills in the same vein, White Collar tries to nail the sunny side of human existence, provide just enough intrigue to make you pay attention, and then make you laugh a whole lot. I can only hope it doesn’t turn into its USA Network colleague Burn Notice, which exemplfied that same breezy fun in Miami rather than New York; in the end, the creators decided to take their spy action into pretentiously dark territory, and not with the deft care you’d expect. White Collar could end up this way, but I certainly hope not! Perhaps this is just expectation, but I find USA Network shows highly enjoyable. I really don’t ask for much – just keep me entertained with my brain slightly massaged from a well-formed joke with a great delivery, and I’m sold. Getting invested happens over time, and then the show’s writers earn their keep by mixing things up.
We could say that White Collar employs well-worn tropes in interesting ways without compromising what made those tropes great. That’s a bit of high praise, and yet five episodes in, I just really like the laid back vibe of the whole thing. That it takes place in New York City seems weird due to that lack of forward momentum, but it tends to work more often than not. The stakes are, shall we say, low, and while there’s the rare murder-related case, much of it comes down to creative theft via the titular criminals. That makes them much more interesting to an audience than, say, a drug dealer or gangster, since I’ve seen those stereotypes fill entertainment media screens a million times over. Think more Ocean’s Eleven, with its vibe of cool sophistication. While committing crimes, of course.
The police officer in charge needs, by default, to act like a giant bumbler, granted, but at least he plays an endearing bumbler with a sense of humor. Matt Bomer’s Caffrey has to act like he knows a whole lot about creative stealing, so he ends up decked in Rat Pack-era duds which suit the character perfectly. The bumbler’s wife does enough to humanize both men and show their insecurities, while Moz (or whatever his name is, I don’t know) provided me with some of the biggest laughs I’ve had in recent memory (drinking champagne while driving a limo to stop a fugitive is pretty funny stuff, any way you look at it). It all sounds so rote, and yet it works.
If I do need to complain about any one thing, it comes with the supposed “hook” that will supposedly invest audiences in a supposedly pre-planned narrative thread about Caffrey’s girlfriend Kate. We never, ever hear the end of Kate’s disappearance or Caffrey trying to find her. Unfortunately, since the audience has little, if any, context to establish or understand this relationship, his motivation falls flat and remains somewhat confusing overall. Since I’ve not seen a flashback or something to that effect, it does not seem unlikely, five episodes in, that our favorite FBI consultant’s being played. I’m not criticizing that this is precitable; I am criticizing that I have zero investment in this “thanks for watching regularly” tidbit they seem to NEED to throw into these shows. I can only hope that linger plot thread ends up unraveled as quickly as possible so I don’t have to think about it.
Why shows think they need some overarching plot sometimes seems beyond me. Not everyhing needs a tinge of “serialized television”. While I realize this dates the show somewhat (you know, around when AMC started schooling fools with their television), it weakens the overall impact of the show as a result. You can’t just throw in predictable overarching stuff with such obvious stakes and the full, well-understood knowledge that your protagonists will live no matter what. How easy destroying tension proves to be! If you can’t do it effectively, don’t bother. Maybe USA Network’s television executives just require this for some reason. Or maybe they figure any show with a slightly more serious plot and setting that Psych (if I hate one show on television more than any other, Psych would be it) should actually contain such a thing. Whatever the case, it’s a pretty minor flaw to an otherwise great show.
In other words, don’t watch White Collar for the mythology; watch it for the fun. Heck, I walked into this with no expectations and came out completely satisfied based on the premise below. Just turn your brain off and enjoy!
