Does this show have what it takes?
Courtroom dramas have a record of excellence, so I felt that The Code might fill that summer-shaped void that is all too often at the heart of television. Initially, I thought that it would be kind of like JAG, which was a favorite of mine in the late 1990s and early 2000s. As it turns out, it’s almost exactly like the show that gave birth to NCIS and its spinoffs, but that’s not a bad thing.
In fact, The Code may be one of the better shows in the genre.
The Ensemble Is Good.
Anna Wood is a good actress, but she needs a meatier story. They all do.
In a startling contrast to other stories like it, The Code relies on an ensemble cast, which gives the show a necessary sense of balance.
Every episode is led by Captain John Abraham (Luke Mitchell), Captain Maya Dobbins (Anna Wood), Major Trey Ferry (Ato Essandoh), and Lieutenant Harper Li (Phillipa Soo). In any given case, Abraham and Li usually work on behalf of the prosecution, whereas Dobbins usually takes on the defense. There hasn’t been enough time to properly develop each character, but the show makes up for it by giving each of them their own moments in almost every episode. On top of that, the actors and actresses put a sense of humanity into their performances, which is always nice to see!
The four lawyers are often backed up by Colonel Glenn Turnbull (Dana Delany) and Warrant Officer Rami Ahmadi (Raffi Barsoumian), and it’s here that the problems start to arise. On one hand, Dana Delany delivers a great performance, but her character is bogged down by the fact that we never really get to see the full weight of her responsibilities in the Judge Advocate Division. On the other, Ahmadi is just kind of there to show the world that there’s a good Muslim on the show and distract from the fact that the religion gave birth to several of our current wars.
By the way, non-citizens are not allowed to become Warrant or Commissioned Officers. Oops.
The Cases Need A Bit More Variety.
There is quite a bit of suspense in this show, but it usually centers itself on murder cases.
Much of the time, television dramas attempt to mix character development and an interesting plot to create a cohesive whole. Fortunately, The Code doesn’t suffer in the story department. While it may be a procedural that compresses time for the sake of drama, the stories are interesting enough to warrant your attention week-by-week.
For one thing, the cases almost always involve real-world issues that Marines (or those under their protection) have to face on a daily basis. On the less serious end of the spectrum, the show deals with false statements on official forms, which can happen once in a while. The usual mix of murder and intrigue lies on the other end of the case load, but the show hasn’t done much to illustrate the strange crimes that lie in between the two extremes.
I suspect that the writers want to keep things interesting, but it’s possible to do more with the concept than usual.
Is It Realistic?
The show seems to be more plausible than others like it, but I’m sure that actual JAG Officers might disagree with certain procedures.
All too often, television writers like to throw realism under the bus for the sake of drama. Apart from the massive Warrant Officer fuck-up that I mentioned previously and a few uniform problems, The Code doesn’t really do that. As I mentioned above, each episode focuses on some of the plausible things that a JAG officer might do, but it compresses the length of an investigation for time. Instead of focusing on trivial issues like that, I’d like to point out an interesting difference between this show and NCIS.
Gibbs, Ziva, and Tony may be entertaining, but it’s important to acknowledge that shows like NCIS blur the line between the detectives and the lab techs. For some reason, the MCRT that is featured in that show steps beyond the bounds of their evidence-gathering authority to function as an investigative unit, even though they’re probably not allowed to do that. The writers could have easily sidestepped the problem by splitting the responsibilities of the main cast accordingly, but they didn’t do that.
The Code manages to avoid this problem by focusing on a nice attention to detail. At certain points, the four lawyers interview witnesses in preparation for the trial, but much of the heavy lifting is done by NCIS Special Agents. We even get to see a few of them in an episode, which illustrates that the writers sort of know what they’re doing here.
Conclusion.
Oddly enough, this is one of the few shows that avoids any kind of obvious political bias, which is a nice change of pace.
The Code is not a perfect show, but there’s more than enough here to make it worth your time. The characters are good and the stories are perfectly fine, but the show’s realism may be a bit hit-or-miss for the veterans and military buffs out there. If the show can hire a competent technical advisor and iron out its biggest problems, it could have quite a bit of potential down the road.
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