TIES THAT BIND

TIES THAT BIND is the first original series produced for UP TV. It’s a family drama with a married female police detective as the mother of two children and aunt of her brother’s two children. The pilot episode shows great promise, with a compassionate performance by Kelli Williams as the mother.

The pilot opens in a courtroom, where a judge sentences Allison McLean’s brother, Tim, to two years for aggravated assault. This angers Tim’s son, Cameron, who’s very unhappy with his aunt for not helping his father stay out of jail.

Allison staves off an official from Child Protective Services. It’s clear she wants to take Cameron and his sister, Mariah, home instead of sending them to foster care. However, it clearly puts a burden on her husband, Matt, and their two children, Jeff and Rachel.

As the family tries to work things out, Allison and her detective partner get involved in a case where a young unmarried couple has gone on the lam after pulling an armed robbery.

The pilot episode for TIES THAT BIND is really good, but it could be better. It’s hard to sympathize with Cameron, who’s rather annoying until the end. Rounding out his rough edges would help viewers relate better to the characters, including Cameron. That said, the pilot extols faith and family as well as justice in a powerful, dramatic way.

It’s a good idea to combine a family drama with a detective thriller. In the traditional detective fiction genre, the detective’s goal is often to help a family restore moral and social order after that order has been compromised or damaged by sin and crime. The one thing TIES THAT BIND most lacks, perhaps, is some kind of special or quirky trait for Allison to apply in her work, like Monk’s OCD or Colombo’s analytical doggedness. During the pilot episode, Allison literally takes a hands-on approach to the witnesses and criminals she interviews or confronts. The series should explore this trait in special ways to really show that Allison is a formidable crime-solving presence as well as a powerful family leader. It would make the show even more captivating.