“We Did What We Did, Now We Deal with It”

A preview of Low Winter Sun.

As most of The Rap Sheet’s regular readers already know, I was a big fan of the too-short-lived, 2010-2011 ABC-TV cop drama Detroit 1-8-7. So I’m cautiously optimistic about Low Winter Sun, an AMC-TV series--also set in beleaguered Detroit, Michigan--that’s scheduled to debut this coming Sunday, August 11, at 10 p.m. ET/PT (following Breaking Bad). Here’s AMC’s brief on the show:

The AMC Original Series Low Winter Sun is a contemporary story of murder, deception, revenge and corruption in a world where the line between cops and criminals is blurred. Low Winter Sun begins with the murder of a cop by a fellow Detroit detective. Seemingly the perfect crime, in reality the murder activates forces that will forever alter the detective’s life, and pull him into the heart of the Detroit underworld.

This program is based on an award-winning 2006 British TV miniseries of the same name. Mark Strong reprises his role here as detective Frank Agnew, only now he’s part of the Detroit Police Department, rather than a cop working the gray, ancient thoroughfares of Edinburgh, Scotland. Low Winter Sun’s cast also includes James Ransome as Damon Callis, a member of the local criminal class, fetching Canadian actress Athena Karkanis as detective Dani Kahlil, and another English performer, Lennie James, appearing as cop Joe Geddes. According to the IGN blog, it’s Agnew and Geddes who commit the murder, “only for the two to then be tasked with investigating that crime, in the process attempting to make sure no one finds out they are in fact the criminals being hunted.”

After having lived in Detroit for a short time back in the 1980s, I still feel a certain connection to that historic and once-ambitious city. I hope Low Winter Sun does it proud.

Click here to watch a video about the series’ location shooting in Detroit, together with a trailer for the UK edition of Low Winter Sun.

READ MORE: “Broken Men, Broken Place,” by David Carr
(The New York Times); “Review: AMC’S Low Winter Sun Comes on Strong, Stays Solid,” by Robert Lloyd (Los Angeles Times); “The Quality-TV Checklist,” by Willa Paskin (Slate).