Peacock’s Detective Drama The Calling Is a Prime Example of Peak TV Mediocrity

Initially, the appeal of streaming was its freshness. It offered a stylized, curated quality of television that could not be produced or consumed in the same way anywhere else, and proved a relentless success. Network television had become stale to enough audiences to warrant investing in what promised to be the future; on-demand, ad-free programming that was more eye-catching than the average cable show. As time went on, every network and studio invested in their own streaming platform, siphoning off talent and audiences that weakened the potency of Netflix and Prime Video’s initial appeal—but every nascent service that popped up needed original programming to flesh out its library.

This is why streaming services launch with a cavalcade of broadly-pitched, hopeful “system-sellers” that open the door to regular releases of average-to-good quality, because at the end of the day, a lot of money has been sunk into these platforms, and it’s not possible to scale back. The flashiness that streaming initially offered has now dulled, and while the type of content we’re offered has changed, it’s not been as persistently game-changing as the break from cable promised, landing us close to where we began. Welcome to Peak TV, ladies and gentlemen, the tagline is: Who Gives a Shit?

And that’s how you get The Calling, a sincere, high-brow detective show engaging with real ideas, with stalwarts of old-era entertainment behind the camera, ready to prop up Peacock’s original content—and it’s the most aggressively average show out there. Showrunner David E. Kelley has sanded down most of his comedic instincts but retained just enough of his peculiar character-writing in adapting the Avraham Avraham novels, centering on the titular Jewish Orthodox NYPD detective, played by Isreali-German actor Jeff Wilbusch. He’s aided by his new partner Janine (Juliana Canfield), who’s fascinated by the deep spirituality and alternative methods Avraham solves crimes with, which are regarded with an irritated if respectful eye-rolling from Detective Malzone (Michael Mosley, for once not playing a piece of shit) and Captain Davies (Karen Robinson). Avraham doesn’t do it by the books, but he does get the job done.

It’s Avraham’s unique police work that helps The Calling stand out. His deep understanding of morality and human nature helps him hone in on motivation and instincts to a startling degree, while his intense interrogations have him boring into a suspect’s soul to unravel them from the inside. Having any moral or behavioral code that’s distinct and separate to conventional NYPD practices will always be a good thing, and like Under the Banner of Heaven before it, Avraham proves being a committed, religious detective brings new layers to a character who seek the restoration of justice and order. (Even though Avraham can also do sick martial arts moves. Unsure how this relates to Orthodoxy.) His eye for details both physical and metaphysical doesn’t feel like a cheap trick from a cheating mystery writer; often it bolsters Avraham’s peculiarities in interesting and funny ways. “The human fingertip is a profoundly perceptive organ,” he once comments, to which the only reasonable answer should be “… Sure?”