It's a long way from "Cheers" or "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody," but another TV show set in Boston will air Sunday.
City on a Hill, starring Aldis Hodge and Kevin Bacon as Boston detectives in the 1990s, premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. on Showtime. The show has been billed as Boston's version of "The Wire" — the highly revered HBO series that examined Baltimore, Maryland's streets and criminal justice system — by some critics.
Though "The Wire" is a tough act to follow, the show aims to step back and look at the moving parts that impact crime in the city. Early on, it looks at the "Boston Miracle" of the 1990s, according to a review from the Boston Globe. That was an initiative aimed at getting community leaders to lower the youth homicide rate.
The trailer features a montage filled with plenty of cops kicking in doors, bar fights, conversations with priests and bank robberies. Yes, the bank robbers wear hockey goalie masks, and one character is wearing a Starter hat (it is set in 1992 of course). There's a lot of smoking in pool halls, and toward the end of the trailer, someone rolls a barrel into what appears to be either the Charles or the Mystic River.
"What do you want?" Bacon's character asks Hodge's character in the trailer. "Long term? For you?"
"I want to rip up the (expletive) machinery in this (expletive) town," Hodge responds. "I want to tear it down. For good."
Ben Affleck, Tom Fontana and Matt Damon are all billed as executive producers. Boston natives Jonathan Tucker and Jere Shea have acting roles, as well as Johnston, Rhode Island's Amanda Clayton.
