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Mar 28, 2010 By Jim Scott Web Exclusive

Timothy Olyphant finally found a vehicle that made the most of his charm and talents in HBO’s lamentedly short-lived Deadwood, and FX and producers Graham Yost and Elmore Leonard intelligently cast him in a similar role in Justified. Based on some of Leonard’s short stories, Olyphant stars as U.S. Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens, who in the premiere, is forced to return to his hometown in Kentucky after shooting a criminal he’s given 24 hours to leave town. Givens, in fact, could very well be the direct descendent of Seth Bullock, the Sheriff of Deadwood, a cooler-than-cool crack shot, with his own moral code.

The premiere episode drops Givens back into his old life, where his friend Boyd Crowder (played by former The Shield co-star Walton Goggins) has turned into a church bombing white supremacist. The assumption as the episode goes on is that the case between Givens and Crowder and his crew will last the season, like the cases on The Wire or the growing mythology of fellow FX show Sons of Anarchy. However, even though Crowder keeps popping up, each episode centers around one case.

Though Givens has considerable charm, the tidiness doesn’t build the kind of steam that would take the show to another level. One expects that as Justified continues, it will create some more depth and momentum, as the one-off episodes don’t hold enough interest by themselves. Here’s hoping another Olyphant lawman doesn’t leave this world before his time. (www.fxnetworks.com/justified)

Author rating: 6/10