Why Aren't You Watching: Justified

Justified, currently airing its 4th season Tuesdays on FX (catch up online or with the DVDs), is an all around well-crafted series, featuring tense action and surprising hilarity. Although each episode often features a stand-alone case, plots often bleed into the next episode and there is always a season-long arc/villain as well. Based on the character created by novelist Elmore Leonard, the series revolves around Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (the phenomenal Timothy Olyphant), after he is transferred from the Miami office for killing yet another person "who drew on him first." So although the killings are justified (hey that's the name of the show!), the constant investigations cause too many headaches and his superiors send him to Lexington, Kentucky, right near the criminal-run backwoods of Harlan County where he grew up.

In Harlan is where things get interesting for the Marshal, as he is reunited with his criminal (and slightly senile) father Arlo (Ramond J. Barry), and Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), an eloquent career criminal who worked in the coal mines with Raylan as a teenager. As a Marshal, Raylan's duties are more complex than a cop, allowing him to interact more freely with these characters and others, though these criminal interactions are usually pretty hostile of course. This is just one of the many ways in which Justified reveals itself to be, as star (and hands-on executive producer) Timothy Olyphant describes it, more of a comedy than a drama.

Although the criminals are dangerous, they are often pretty incompetent and fairly stupid, opening the door for a variety of comedic exchanges amongst themselves and with the Marshals hunting them. Raylan's boss Art Mullen (Nick Searcy) and fellow Marshal Tim Gutterson (Jacob Pitts) often exchange wisecracking insults, typically directed at Raylan and his tendency to find trouble, then quickly shoot it. Humor also arises in the clever narrative devices employed throughout the series, such as finding new ways for Raylan to dispatch his enemies than simply shooting them. The show can be consistent with a Western, with Raylan's choice of headwear and quick draw, but the setting and careful writing often take it into its own category. The series truly lives up to its Elmore Leonard roots, with memorable villains and dynamic characters wrapped up in gripping storylines, making Justified feel more like an expertly written neo-noir novel than a weekly television show.