Neagley review: You fall in and out of love with Reacher offshoot

Neagley review: My loudly-declared soft spot for Reacher has always had room for Neagley, and when they are together, they rekindle old magic: maybe in the next Neagley outing, have more of Reacher? And maybe more Neagley, in the next Reacher?

Neagley review: At the outset, let me confess how keenly I was waiting for this Reacher spin-off, with his favourite team-mate Neagley at its centre: the fierce ex-Armywoman who went on to become a PI in Chicago, has been a staple in the best Reacher adventurers, and has livened up things everytime she shows up in the show.

In her first solo outing, Maria Sten’s Neagley fills the screen with her presence, the creators Nick Santora and Nicholas Wootton wisely surrounding her with an interesting ensemble from the get-go: smart cop Hudson Riley (Greyston Hold), an equally smart secretary Renee Birdwhistle (Adeline Rudolph) and homeless orphan Keeno (Jasper Jones), who get enough to do together and on their own.

So does the spin-off, eight episodes of 45-50 minutes each, hold? Here’s another confession: though I enjoyed it in parts, with Sten staying consistently watchable, I kept falling out of it too, especially when it darts off here and there, circling around characters I couldn’t bring myself to care about.

And yes, it has to be said that being Reacher-less is a problem. Alan Ritchson and Maria Sten have a palpable camaraderie, making us believe that there was a time in their shared past when they were there for each other. They still do. Ritchson’s brief appearance here makes you miss him, and them.

The trouble with filling a show like this, which needs to coast on knife-edge tension slicing through high-octane action, a Lee Child speciality in his early books, is to keep everything brisk. The quick edits keep trying to push the pace, but its length is a problem, forcing bits to clump.

The bad guys don’t come off too badly, even though they can never quite shake off their tropey-ness. Evil pharma cooking up dangerous drugs is the main act here, a sharply-suited CEO (Mathew Del Negro) teaming up with a proselytizer-type guru (Damon Herriman) who runs a farm with the help of his main disciple (Rebecca Lillidiard) on the outskirts of town, where their acolytes growing organic vegetables have no idea about a barn where mad scientists are up to no good. And there is, of course, the baddest of them all hiding in high-rises, perhaps the weakest-written link in this ensemble.

The best parts belong to, of course, Neagley, and her increasingly mellow stance towards Riley, as they learn the importance of having each other’s backs, no matter what. She is a tough-talking sleuth dealing with childhood trauma, a new element the writers introduce, giving Neagley an ill dad with a deep dark secret: from the books, we know that she hates being touched, to the point that she won’t even shake hands, but the show gives it a lot of oxygen, giving Neagley a chance to be vulnerable.

My loudly-declared soft spot for Reacher has always had room for Neagley, and when they are together, they rekindle old magic: maybe in the next Neagley outing, have more of Reacher? And maybe more Neagley, in the next Reacher? That’s a thought.

Neagley cast: Maria Sten, Greyston Hold, Jasper Jones, Adeline Rudolph, Damon Herriman, Mathew Del Negro, Rebecca Lillidiard, Jhaleil Swaby

Neagley director: Sam Hill, Phil Abraham, MJ Bassett, Gary Fleder