What a pilot. ... I watched “Forget It, Dex, It’s Stumptown” three times before sitting down to write this review, and got more out of it each time. What’s more, each of those three times, the cold open gag plus action sequence plus Neil Simon musical sting that sets up the series’ whole vibe absolutely killed, as did its callback at the end of the hour.
Fortunately, Stumptown is blessed with a proven TV and movie star playing a character who herself arrives on screen fully formed. It’s years away from becoming a classic in its own right, but it reminds me of one, and that’s a good start.
“Stumptown” starts off strong, quickly introducing us to characters we want to get to know better, avoiding the usual private investigator clichés, and giving us a setting that’s fresh and brimming with story possibilities.
With only one episode to go on, it’s hard to say how “Stumptown” will handle its upcoming cases of the week, or if it will shade Dex out beyond her cliched basics. But there are a couple standout elements of the show that point towards a more promising season than not.
Wednesday’s premiere episode veers back and forth story-wise almost as crazily as the show-starting wild ride. ... That’s the overall point and thrust of Stumptown, where a woman drinks, fights and has sex on her terms in the same manner numerous men did in an assembly line of earlier ABC action dramas.
Stumptown is one of the better new fall network pilots, and not just because most of them are BAD, but because it delivers Smulders to our TV screens on a weekly basis again.