Anything with Alan Cumming has me at “hello.” I first saw him in “Circle of Friends,” with Minnie Driver, where he played the creepiest man who wasn’t physically scary that I have ever seen on the screen. All creep. No fear. Then I saw him on “The Graham Norton Show” describing meeting Oprah with his friend, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk6UuYbzHcM and I wanted to be his friend; I wanted to have lunch with him. He tells a story like nobody I’ve ever seen and still rocks the boat on “The Good Wife,” “It’s Complicated” (yes, he was in it!), and now — drumroll, please — he has kicked off the first episode of CBS’s “Instinct.” In this show, he plays a CIA agent who retired after enduring something difficult (we don’t yet know what it is), and is now going to partner with a police officer, Lizzie Needham, played by Bojana Novakovic. And his specially? Serial killers, of course—Hannibal Lecter types!
How lucky are we to be watching a TV show containing an actor as talented as Alan Cumming! It truly is the golden age of television.
Watch it.
Watch his humor (the writing needs some adjustment around the dialog, but they will grow into the character’s rhythms). Watch his empathy. Watch his abnormal presence, which you can see in this Graham Norton interview. I’m adding it here again https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk6UuYbzHcM in case you didn’t click on my earlier post!
And, the other characters? They are looking good too: Andy — a lawyer turned bar owner, and Detective Needham — whose fiancé died in the line of duty a year before.
“Instinct” has all the makings of a strong series to last many seasons. Oh happy day!
-Justine Hollister
