Two very Good Guys spice up Monday nights

Remember Colin Hanks? I kind of do. Besides being the spawn of one of the greatest movie actors of the past 30 years, Colin also had a pretty good performance in Orange County, an MTV Films produced movie that was about a kid rejected from Stanford due to a screw-up by his brother (Jack Black).

(Note: While MTV the Network has gone to shit, MTV Films is a shockingly respectable company. You can check out the full list here, but the highlights include Jackass, Murderball, Coach Carter, Napoleon Dynamite, 200 Cigarettes and Varisty Blues. A lot of their films are clearly meant as popcorn flicks or cheap grabs at the teen audience, but even then they're simply better made than much of the other crap that gets shoveled to theaters.)

After Orange County, Colin laid low... Actually, that's a bit of an embellishment on my part. He had minor roles and starring roles in 20 other productions, but I haven't heard of most of them except Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny, which I was scared off from seeing because of the horrible reviews. However, I'm glad Colin laid low because he is now starring in The Good Guys, a buddy cop drama / comedy airing Monday nights (tonight!) on FOX.

Set in Dallas, the show follows Jack Bailey (Hanks), a cop that is so straight-laced and conservative that he offends everyone else in the department. He is stuck on the minor crimes beat because he is such a by-the-book snob. Of course, he is partnered with Dan Stark (Bradley Whitford; the Internet tells me he was the mild dude on The West Wing), which is funny because they're completely different! (Thanks to Joel McHale for the assist on that one.) There is also a cute DA, played by Jenny Wade [right], that is the ex of Jack.

Yeah, the premise has been done a million times before. But imagine The Good Guys as a successful version of the Starsky and Hutch remake. Jack is the anchor of the show, as his persona lends itself easily to being tweaked by Dan, who is nearly incompetent. Examples: He has a deranged fear of computers, as one point threatening to kick a laptop while interrogating it, and also suggesting that they ask people on the street to identify a random phone number instead of using Reverse Look-Up. Dan's main investigative methods consist of sleeping with ladies and getting drunk. “This is called good cop, drunk cop... You're the good cop.”

None of this is high concept. But as a summer show, it fits the bill pretty well. Check it out when its on tonight at 9 p.m. Last week's episode is also shown tonight at 10 p.m. on FX.

The Good Guys logo is from here.