Good Guys preview on Fox includes expected Dallas scenery

by Teresa Gubbins

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Half the fun is spotting familiar neighborhoods.

The Good Guys Colin Hanks & Bradley Whitford

DALLAS — The special premiere of The Good Guys, a new buddy cops show that aired on Fox on Wednesday night, gave viewers around the country a chance to feast their eyes on the Dallas landscape we get to see every day.

The show's production base camp is in Fair Park, and shooting didn't stray far from home -- from the opening shot of the South Side on Lamar apartment complex to the closing scene in front of Dallas City Hall, with a whole lot of Deep Ellum in between.

It felt like a home movie but with high production values, thanks to its car chases, fiery explosions, and the overturning of a truck filled with crates of oranges.

The basis of the hour-long show, which moves to Monday nights beginning June 7, is the budding buddy relationship between cops Dan Stark and Jack Bailey, played by Bradley Whitford and Colin Hanks. Whitford is the jaded rule-breaker and Hanks is the buttoned-down younger cop. The series was created by Matt Nix, who did the zippier Burn Notice.

Dialog and setups felt familiar, and the buddy chemistry is too new to generate much warmth. But locals could amuse themselves by playing the game of identifying Dallas landmarks as they popped up.

The show started with a robbery at an East-Dallas-ish-looking residence identified as "327 Holliston Street." No such street. But over the next 20 minutes, the action was spliced with slow-panning shots of Fair Park, Deep Ellum, and the Cotton Bowl. They even have Whitford's character Dan Stark living in a silver Airstream trailer parked on the Texas State Fairgrounds in the shadow of the giant ferris wheel.

Much of the action took place in the 2800 block of Commerce Street in a vintage brick storefront. As the cop duo traded gunfire with a South American assassin and glass shatters on the sidewalk, you could spy the graffiti'd wall of Coyote Ugly nearby.

Other locales whose identities were less obvious included a stripper bar and a motel called the South Dallas Value Inn. There was also a scene shot at a hard-to-identify Racetrak-type gas station. But there was no mistaking the location of the ending: the broad concourse in front of Dallas City Hall on Young Street, although the cameras never took in City Hall itself. Maybe they're saving that for a future episode.