Customer Rating:      Summary: Awesome Show Comment: This series is incredible! The story lines are current and the cast is exceptional. Granted, the idea of an angel appearing to try to save someone from the path they're going down might be difficult to adjust to but somehow in this show, it works. Holly Hunter is absolutely fabulous in her role. Be aware though, there are some adult scenes so wait to watch it when the kids are in bed.
Customer Rating:      Summary: Best show on TV Comment: This is the best show on TV. I don't miss a show and I plan on buying them all. You have to watch this show.
Customer Rating:      Summary: Strong, gritty series with a 'hokey' Okie naming element Comment: Seeing the series is almost like coming home. My husband and I lived in Oklahoma City for nearly thirty years and yes, some of the places in the episodes are very familiar. Probably the most familiar even to non-Oklahomans is the Murrah Building Memorial.
The concept is interesting, Grace Hanadarko (Hunter) can't even be favorably described by an angel. She's an OKC-PD detective who drinks too much, sleeps around a lot including with two co-workers one of whom is married.
One night, while driving drunk she hits and kills a pedestrian. While trying to resuscitate him, she prays to God (whom she really doesn't believe in) for a miracle.
What God sends her is Earl (Leon Rippy), a tobacco chewing beat-up looking angel who's the last stop between her and Hell. It's Earl's job to help Grace save herself, but it's not going to be easy. The girl's got issues, including blaming herself for a sister who died in the Murrah Building bombing and dealing with abuse by a priest when she was a child.
As you can imagine, the show's pretty gritty. Grace has to redeem herself while dealing with one of the most stressful jobs in the world and her squad doesn't seem to do low profile cases. We're talking kidnapped little girls, witnesses under threat, hotel murders, etc. I don't think anyone but Holly Hunter could pull the performance off. Rippy is great as Earl, as well.
The show has some excellent elements, character, place, tension. The script occasionally bogs down and a bit of it is 'hokey.' One aspect that amuses me is giving the characters Oklahoma place names as their surnames, including: Hanadarko (Anadarko); Yukon, Purcell, Stillwater, Norman, etc. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens when they run out of names and start using Tahlequah, Tishomingo, Tonkawa and Pottawatomie. (Yes, those are also real Oklahoma place names as well!)
Rebecca Kyle, September 2008
Customer Rating:      Summary: How about saving the script...... Comment: Well I have seen this show, and what is so good about it? It really stinks. I see no good writing and I see that Hunter should have stayed with film acting because television really does nothing for her.
Customer Rating:      Summary: Holly Hunter delivers a breathtaking performance Comment: "Saving Grace" is a marvelous showcase for the talents of Holly Hunter. She's fearless in her portrayal of Oklahoma City detective Grace Hanadarko. The way her emotions play across her face - threatening sudden violence like a summer tornado or breaking into a smile that would crack ice - is testimony to a carefully honed talent. There's magic in Holly's voice, whether she's yelling at a suspect to get on the ground or whispering to a friend about a barely repressed childhood trauma.
She's got her finger on the pulse of something elemental.
Of course, that performance wouldn't count if she couldn't rely on a staff of writers who've crafted a character who, despite a sackload of flaws and failures and weaknesses, is a jewel, the kind of person you'd be proud to call a friend. They allow Grace to fail spectacularly, but they never strip her of her basic humanity.
"Saving Grace" is a compelling drama that manages to ask hard, basic questions about existence and the presence and absence of God, all in the context of a police drama. That's pretty heady stuff for network television, even an edgy network like TNT.
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