CBS begins its attempt to bring action comedy to network television Thursday with the 10 p.m. premiere of “Rush Hour,” a reimagining of the hit feature film franchise.
“My hope is that (viewers) will check it out if they were fans before,” said executive producer Bill Lawrence, the creator of the ABC comedies “Spin City” and “Cougar Town” and the NBC comedy “Scrubs.” “If they weren’t, (I hope they watch) just cause it sounds like something new, at least on network (television).”
“Rush Hour” “delivers feature-quality action and comedy you’ll see on single-camera shows,” Lawrence told City News Service. “When you’re talking about sitting through a procedural for an hour, I think it will bring a lot to people of something that isn’t currently on.”
“Rush Hour” stars Justin Hires as a maverick Los Angeles Police Department detective forced to partner with a reserved, honorable master martial artist with lightning-fast moves (Jon Foo) who comes to Los Angeles from Hong Kong to avenge what is described as his sister’s alleged death and learn more about her connection to a Chinese organized crime ring.
The cast also includes Wendie Malick as LAPD Capt. Lindsay Cole, the boss of Hires’ character; Aimee Garcia as Sgt. Didi Diaz, the former partner of Hires’ character; and Page Kennedy as an informant and cousin of Hires’ character.
The series’ other executive producers include Brett Ratner, who directed the film “Rush Hour” and its two sequels; and Jon Turteltaub, who directed the films “Cool Runnings,” “National Treasure” and “National Treasure: Book of Secrets.”
The series stems from the desire of Lawrence and fellow executive producer Blake McCormick “to do an action-comedy cop show that was in line with the movies that we loved from the ’80s, the ‘Beverly Hills Cops’ and the ‘Lethal Weapons,”‘ McCormick said during CBS’ portion of the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour.
“And we started talking about a way to do that, and it was a very difficult thing. We realized how are you going to do an action-comedy on TV? Then the studio (Warner Bros.) came to us and said, ‘We’ve got the title ‘Rush Hour.’ What do you think about adapting that?’
“That seemed like the perfect way to do it for us because the title is something that people recognize and a lot of people love, and it’s a really, really fun movie saga.”
—City News Service