One of CBS' mid-season replacements, Battle Creek is your basic odd couple pairing police drama setting the gruff old-school Detective Russ Andrew (Dean Winters), the top cop in the tragically underfunded Battle Creek Police Department, with hot shot FBI Special Agent Milton Chamberlain (Tad Hamilton) reassigned to a new branch office across the hall from the police department (for reasons suggested but not fully explained). The first case Russ and Milton are thrown together on is a rare double-homicide for the city involving a pair of low-level drug dealers.
In the show's opening episode Agnew, who has grown increasingly frustrated with his department's lack of a budget, struggles to work with Milton's FBI team while watching every other member of the Battle Creek PD fall in love with the new cop in town. Rounding out the cast are Janet McTeer as Agnew's commanding officer, Kal Penn as Agnew's regular partner, Aubrey Dollar, Damon Herriman, and Grapevine.
The crime solving portion of the first episode takes a back seat to the introduction of the various characters and setting up the relationship between Agnew and Milton in the field. I'm not completely sold on the concept, but I do wonder if the crime being almost an afterthought to how the cops investigate it and get along will be a running theme of the show. I also want to see more of Penn who, after the fun opening involving everything going wrong on a routine bust, isn't given much screentime following Milton's introduction.
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