Currently airing on the Spectrum network from Sony Pictures Television is “L.A.’s Finest,” the TV series spinoff of the “Bad Boys” franchise, starring Gabrielle Union and Jessica Alba.
The Spectrum network will be the exclusive premiere home of the character-driven drama series and airs via Spectrum On Demand, beginning with the first three installments; subsequent episodes will be released weekly on Mondays.
The series hails from Sony Pictures TV, Jerry Bruckheimer Television, and 2.0 Entertainment.
Pam Veasey (“CSI: NY”) serves as co-showrunner of the series and is executive producing Union, Alba, Brandon Margolis and Brandon Sonnier.
The series will see Union reprise her role of Syd Burnett, sister of Martin Lawrence’s Marcus Burnett and a DEA agent last seen in Miami taking down a drug cartel in Bad Boys 2.
Syd Burnett, last seen in Miami taking down a drug cartel, now is an LAPD detective and can pursue all the pleasures Los Angeles has to offer and leave her past behind. But things will get complicated when her new partner, Nancy McKenna (Alba), learns that Syd’s unapologetic lifestyle might be masking a greater personal secret. McKenna is also a working mom who can’t help but look at Syd’s freedom with some grass-is-greener envy. These two have totally different lifestyles and approaches, but they both are at the top of their fields in this action-packed, character-driven procedural.
Blackfilm.com spoke exclusively with Union about the return of Syd, but this time in her own series and partnered with Jessica Alba.
How did the series come about?
Gabrielle Union: Well, I created it. It literally started off as a joke. We were sitting around having drinks and riffing on whatever happened to different characters that I played. I said that from ‘Bring It On” did she go on to be a Laker girl, or had a knee replacement, and by the time it got to Syd, do you think she and Mike Lowery (played by Will Smith) got together? I hadn’t read any of the Bad Boys 3 scripts and I didn’t know if I was in it or not in it. The riffing then became “maybe it can be a show?” I then called my manager and he was like, “That’s a show.”
We hit up Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced the Bad Boys films, and he said, “That’s absolutely a show.” Then Sony Pictures got on board and we created a show based off my character Syd, who we know was trained at the DEA. There’s not much of a backstory to her. We don’t know what happened to her after she needed to saved by her brother and her lover on that beach. That’s all you got. We were able to spin her off to the other side of the country and create a parallel universe, a parallel mythology in little ways where they intersect with what the boys are doing in Bad Boys 3 but still very much in the Bad Boys universe. You’re still getting two kick ass, funny, sexy people in law enforcement handling some crimes of the week but we’re not a procedural show. We have complicated, layered, delicious mysteries surrounding them. We created a character driven TV show. That’s how it happened.
Rather than having a show on your own, you have Jessica Alba as your co-star playing your partner. Why two people and not just you as the lead?
Gabrielle Union: I’m one of those people that if I get a seat at the table, I’m bringing as many people with me as possible. What’s better than one woman of color headlining a show and being an executive producer when you can have two. If they would had let me have ten then I would have had that as well. They wanted to stick with two. There are traditional buddy cop shows that’s always two dudes. We’ve never had two women of color. Once they signed off, the only person that was everyone’s list was Jessica Alba, who hadn’t been doing television like that. She’s just had a baby and running a billion dollar company, but we also know that Jessica doesn’t need a learning curve to be a bad ass. We know she’s a bad ass. We know she’s an action hero. If she’ll have us, let’s try to make this happen. I wanted someone who has an equally big life, someone who gets it and in on the joke, and who wants to take over and be in charge, and not just share the responsibility but share the wealth. Jessica was that.
The series has drama, action and comedy. Is this all new for you? To play with these ranges in one show?
Gabrielle Union: Yeah. I’m trying to think of the last time I got to kick ass, be funny, by sexy, and get to play a layered, complicated, imperfect character? I’d probably hit two out of the three, or one of three or four, but not all at once. It’s been a long career, but off the top of my head, this is new for me.
Does one need to go back Bad Boys 2 in order to get a sense of who Syd is?
Gabrielle Union: No. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, a lot of women in action franchises are woefully underdeveloped. They serve to allow the guy to be the hero. They are the sexy victim or the sexy damsel in distress, or the emotional sounding board or punching bag. We have no idea how Syd got to the DEA. You’d like to think that she’s capable but she needed her brother and her lover to save her, but we know at some point, she got through to get through the DEA. We just have a lot of room to play so you don’t have to watch Bad Boys 1 or 2 to get to know who Syd is.
Part of it is because in Bad Boys 2 when Syd was undercover, you never really got to see who she was outside of being Marcus’ sister and Mike Lowery’s love interest. We have no idea what made Syd who she is. With this show, because we have a parallel mythology, you get to learn who Syd is and what makes her tick. What her dislikes are, what her dreams are, what her nightmares are. We function independent of what the boys are doing in Bad Boys 3 that way you can enjoy 3 and not have to worry about seeing the whole season of LA’s Finest and you can watch LA’s Finest without ever having to see the Bad Boys films.
When you look at the stats, there hasn’t been a great amount of people of color, specifically women playing cops, detectives or any form of law enforcement on the small screen. Especially in lead roles. How do you feel about that?
Gabrielle Union: It’s necessary. For me and Jess, as a Black woman and as a Latina, we are very aware of the relationship with law enforcement. We wanted to make sure that we can show that there is another way to be in law enforcement. As we are developing the show and going through the scripts, literally page by page for every episode. We won’t show police brutality on the show.
We’re not trying to contribute to the current population on our show. instead of seeing us arresting people for weed. You’ll see my character rolling one up with someone. On a different show, you would see them add to the prison population and we didn’t want to play that into our show. We didn’t want to be beat cops or detectives. We know that the relationship between our community and law enforcement needs to be different.
Where do we see you next?
Gabrielle Union: I have America’s Got Talent on the small screen and I’m in pre-production on two projects that I will be starring in. We don’t have a start date because I have to see if, hopefully, we’ll get another season of LA’s Finest. With my production company, we’re doing more television projects and films as well.
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