The TV column Police procedural Wicked City finally debuts

It is scheduled to premiere with a 10-episode first season on October 27, 2015.[1][2] The first season focuses on two LAPD detectives (Jeremy Sisto and Gabriel Luna) as they search for a pair of romantically-linked serial killers (Ed Westwick and Erika Christensen) terrorizing the Sunset Strip. It is vile and sadistic. “Wicked City” features a few genuinely creepy scenes – a neighbor drops her daughter at Kent’s house so he can baby-sit the girl the day after he commits a murder – and Mr. Westwick conveys the necessary alluring air required to believably prey on young women. Suddenly impressed and intrigued, Kent spares her life and slowly but surely recruits Betty to become his stab-happy soulmate.

Kent, in turn, is an egomaniac with a deep hatred and distrust of women and authority figures. The show’s costume, hair, set and lighting crews may not see their names on billboards; without their stellar work, though, there’d nearly certainly be holes in Wicked City’s tapestry. But there isn’t much incentive to do that.

So Wicked City will likely pivot on two relationships: Kent and Betty (who are interesting) and Kent and Detective Jack Roth (who, ugh, we’ve seen the evil nemesis thing before).

Despite noticeable efforts to play Kent and Betty as wounded, troubled people with murderously kinky bedroom predilections, Westwick and Christensen’s stunted, one-note characters seem better suited as reenactments on an Investigation Discovery true-crime program than a prime-time series. The same pretty much applies to Sisto’s Roth, a dogged detective with a dark side. Karen is, perhaps, the only one who can identify Kent but she’s also his next victim.

It’s just the latest series driven by violence against women.

In fact, the only woman on “Wicked City” who’s not a killer, a victim or Det.

Amidst the kinky sex, cocaine-snorting, and rock “n” roll ladled on in the pilot, Taissa Farmiga (“American Horror Story: Coven”) adds a little relief as an aspiring journalist with the improbable name of Karen McLaren.

A decade ago, TV critics were sent DVD screeners in advance of new show premieres for the goal of watching and writing their reviews. What a wicked waste indeed. We can debate whether a major broadcast network is the appropriate place for such a show, but ABC would be able to make a better case if “Wicked City” were better television.