“Rogue: The Complete First Season” is an intriguing police story but one that is lacking not necessarily excitement but enough twists and turns that may shock you or have you on the edge of your seat.  You expect something big to happen with each episode and you are left feeling that the series can not escape it’s “average” storyline. Perhaps I was expecting way too much. But on its own “Rogue: The Complete First Season” is a good police drama series, just not as compelling as I would have hoped.
© 2013 Undercover Rogue Productions Inc. and Greenroom Rogue Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
DVD TITLE: Rogue: The Complete First Season
SERIES DATE: 2013
DURATION: 10 Episodes (500 Mnutues)
DVD INFORMATION: 1:78:1 aspect ratio, Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 Surround Sound, Subtitles: English SDH
COMPANY: Greenroom Entertainment/Direc TV/Momentum
RATED: TV 14 DSLV
RELEASE DATE: March 11, 2014
Directed by Larysa Kondracki, Mike Barker, David Frazee, Nick Hamm, Peter Howitt, Jon Jones, Brian Kirk, Nick Murphy
Written by Matthew Parkhill, Jesse McKeown, Lizzie Mickery, Angus Fraser, Daniel Goldfarb, Michelle Paradise
Executive Producer: John Morayniss, Matthew Parkhill, Michael Rosenberg, Steven Marrs, Nick Hamm, Chris Long
Co-Executive Producer: Isibeal Ballance, Robert Petrovicz
Music by Jeff Toyne
Cinematography by Kieran McGulgan
Edited by Alex Mackie, Matthew Tabern
Casting by Corinne Clark, Jennifer Page, Kelly Valentine Hendry, Victor Jenkins
Production Design by Ricardo Spinace
Art Direction by Kendelle Elliott, Doris Deutschmann, James Steuart
Set Decoration by Joanne Leblanc
Costume Design by Angus Strathie
Starring:
Thandie Newton as Grace
Sarah Jeffery as Evie Travis
Leah Gibson as Cathy Laszlo
Marton Csokas as Jimmy Laszlo
Joshua Sasse as Alec Laszlo
Jarod Joseph as Nicholas Fleming
Kavan Smith as Tom Travis
Claudia Ferri as Sophia Hernandez
Ian Tracey as Lucas “Mitch” Mitchell
Ian Hart as Buddy Wilson
Philip Granger as Joe
Michael P. Northey as Sean
Matthew Beard as Max Laszlo
A smart*complex*character-led thriller*ROGUE revolves around Grace*a morally and emotionally-conflicted undercover detective who is tormented by the possibility that her own actions caused her young son’s mysterious death. In her quest for the truth*Grace goes rogue and falls deeper into a forbidden relationship with Jimmy Laszlo*head of the city’s most powerful and dangerous crime family. To stay alive*Grace must help Jimmy find the traitor in his midst*while knowing he may have played a role in her own tragedy. Lines are crossed with devastating consequences for everyone.
In 2013, DirecTV’s Audience Netowrk and Canadian premium services “The Movie Network” and “Movie Central” co-commissioned the police drama television series “Rogue”.
Shot in Vancouver and created by Matthew Parkhill, the drama series stars Thandie Newton (“The Pursuit of Happyness”, “Mission: Impossible II”, “The Chronicles of Riddick”) and Marton Csokas (“Lord of the Rings” films, “xXx”, “The Bourne Supremacy”), “Rogue” is set in Oakland and would revolve around Grace “Jackie” Travis (portrayed by Thandie Newton), a San Jose police officer who works undercover trying to bring down Jimmy Laszlo (portrayed by Marton Csokas) and his criminal organization.
When not working, she is a wife and mother and lately her young boy, Sam has been having nightmares in which Grace has does all she can to help calm him down.
While working undercover, her Sam is murdered in a crossfire. Because of that, Gracie’s world has been thrown upside down and now she is after the killer responsible for the death of her little boy.
Four months later, Gracie has left the police force and tried to push the police dept. to find the death of her boy but there are no leads, except one. But unfortunately, the police believe her son’s death was that he was in the wrong place, at the wrong time and was killed.
And now, she acts as a rogue officer, working on her son’s case without the support of the police dept. and infiltrate Jimmy Laszlo’s criminal organization and pretend that she is among them.
Meanwhile, her personal life at home is getting worse as she promised her older daughter Evie (portrayed by Sarah Jeffery) that she would spend more time with the family but she is too driven to find out who killed her son, at the expense of possibly hurting her own family. So much that her daughter Evie tells her that maybe her little brother wouldn’t have died if she was more of a mother than a police officer.
But as Gracie infiltrates Jimmy’s organization and with the help with a few contacts in the police dept., will Gracie find who is responsible for killing Sam?
VIDEO & AUDIO:
“Rogue: The Complete First Season” is presented in Widescreen (1:78:1). The series looks good on DVD, the scenes are well-lit, closeups are nicely shot and skintones are natural and during low light scenes, I didn’t see any major noise or compression artifacts.
As for audio, “Rogue: The Complete First Season” is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 Surround Sound and the series is primarily dialogue and music driven. Dialogue is clear and understandable, action scenes especially gun shots are crystal clear. Surround usage is primarily ambiance-driven.
Subtitles are in English SDH.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“Rogue: The Complete First Season” comes with the following special features:
- Script to Screen: Behind-the-Scenes Featurette – (23:13) The cast discuss their character and how the series is shot and the set design for the series, stunts and bringing the script to life.
- Rogue Files: Reparation Webisodes – A total of ten webisodes, each about six minutes long and revolves around the detective Mitch (portrayed by Ian Tracey).
- Trailer – (2:10) Trailer for “Rogue: The Complete First Season”.
How far would one police officer, a mother, go in order to find out who murdered her child?
The first season of “Rogue: The Complete First Season” is among the several entertaining drama series to come from Canada for DirecTV. The first drama series for the satellite TV provider.
The series primarily rests on the shoulders of actress Thandie Newton to sell us the rogue cop trying to infiltrate and assimilate to a crime family while also trying to be careful not to get caught by those in the organization and police.
A lot of episodes are more or less, the character of Gracie trying to make Jimmy believe in her and her watching Jimmy’s back, while there are suspicions about Gracie.
The banal series tries to extend a series on the premise of a mother/police officer trying to find her son’s killer but by doing so, it feels like a long series with a lot of filler. In some ways, for a series like this, you want to see the character of Gracie receive an injection of Jack Bauer edginess and literally want to see the “revenge is sweet” mantra from episode to episode. The character needs to toughen up and not be preoccupied with the roles of being a mother and as much as its important to show her relationship with family, in some ways, I was hoping to see some twist or something that would drive Gracie to become more defiant and really kick-ass.
Alas, this is not one of those series. Gracie is a vulnerable and normal police officer doing all she can to find her son’s killer and we can see from episode to episode of why she feels tremendous guilt.
Overall, “Rogue: The Complete First Season” is an intriguing police story but one that is lacking not necessarily excitement but enough twists and turns that may shock you or have you on the edge of your seat.  You expect something big to happen with each episode and you are left feeling that the series can not escape it’s “average” storyline.
Perhaps I was expecting way too much. But on its own “Rogue: The Complete First Season” is a good police drama series, just not as compelling as I would have hoped.
