Scott Tortorice
Senior Member
If anybody sees this, let us know how good it is:
Endgame
Endgame
Endgame is brisk, breezy, flawed and fascinating to watch.
The new, Vancouver-set detective drama about an agoraphobic Russian chess master who solves mysteries from the (relative) safety of his upmarket B.C. hotel -- traumatized by the gangland-style murder of his fiancee, he's terrified of going outside -- is notable for what it isn't as much as what it is.
Endgame is not about serial killers, though the mystery in tonight's opener, a child kidnapping, has a tired, familiar ring to it. Endgame isn't set in a forensic lab: there are no bodies being cut open on morgue tables, and no witty banter between cynical, tough-guy and tough-gal cops. Endgame is smarter than that, and more worldly.
Endgame is a tip of the hat to the private-detective genre, a throwback to '70s TV classics like The Magician and Columbo, where a vaguely unhinged but brilliant sleuth helps ordinary, everyday people who, for whatever reason, find themselves in trouble.