Ballard Series Guest Appearances Had Us Missing Bosch: Legacy
The cast of Bosch: Legacy make guest appearances throughout this season of Ballard, which only makes us miss the original shows even more. The new Michael Connelly series, Ballard, which spun off from Bosch: Legacy, is as solid as the mothership show, but it has one big flaw - that it makes you miss the original show more and more as the first season progresses.
This is due to the fact that the cast of Bosch: Legacy, with the exception of Madison Lintz as Maddie Bosch, make guest appearances throughout the season. The new series already had a surprise guest star in Titus Welliver, who appears at least four times during the 10-episode season, passing the torch to Maggie Q as the new lead of the TV universe.
Ballard enlists Bosch's expertise to help her with hacking a phone, and Mo Bassie (Stephen Chang), Bosch's hipster hacking sidekick, shows up - although he doesn't get any lines. Retired cops Crate and Barrell (Gregory Scott Cummins and Troy Evans) from Bosch's Hollywood Station days make an appearance at the funeral of a cop who was Ballard's former partner.
Ballard also runs into Bosch's old partner Jerry Edgar (Jamie Hector) twice, and the two turn out to be on friendly terms. Honey Chandler (Mimi Rogers) appears in the finale as the current District Attorney when Ballard confronts her about letting a corrupt cop she brought down free. These guest appearances might be welcome to fans, but they keep reminding us of the original Bosch series and keep Ballard from being an independent show from the mothership.
In contrast, the new show feels more like a conventional police procedural, lacking the edginess that made Bosch: Legacy so compelling. They're callbacks to the mothership series and show that the characters are still out there with their own stories, but they only make us want to follow their stories, sometimes more than the slightly rote plots Ballard has to chase.
Harry Bosch's sporadic appearances on Ballard feel like his half of the show is missing, that it really should be Bosch and Ballard like the current books. Maggie Q has talked about including the cast from Bosch: Legacy in the new series - the downside is that they make viewers wish the show were closer to the current books, where they work closely together and each has their own storylines.
So, if you're a fan of Michael Connelly's novels and the original Bosch series, be prepared for some familiar faces and nostalgic feels as you watch Ballard. But, if you're looking for an independent show with its own unique voice and style, you might be disappointed.