Collars are White

When I first started watching Hustle, I thought it was the setup up of: what if the police got a bunch of crims on their side to help take down the bad guys? It wasn't that series...

But White Collar is close. Neal Caffrey is a fraudster, caught and sent to jail by Agent Peter Burke. He got out after his girlfriend left him, but was caught again by Burke. But instead of going back to prison, he arranged to help Burke solve a case, and then that arrangement continues. And so, each week is "fraud of the week" and these two run around solving through a mixture of legal and not-so-legal means. And there's also a running arc of Neal trying to get back with his girlfriend. (At least in Season One. I haven't watched the others yet.)

It's a nice light drama series, and it caught my interest. It was talking a fine line between trying to make Neal a hero and an anti-hero, and not presenting Burke as an idiot that lets Neal get away with everything. It does this pretty successfully, although... my main bugbear about this series is the issue of trust. In that no-one seems to have it. Neal is running deals behind Burke's back, Burke is getting information on what Neal is doing and using that to keep on top of him... they don't talk to each other, and it's obvious that's causing problems. Fine, the creators need to keep tension and drama, but this is giving weight to the 'they are all idiots' side that they need to keep away from.

I'm going to continue watching, but I hope they stop the needless forced character separation.

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