• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, July 8, 2025

The “Bosch” universe expands this week with the arrival of “Ballard,” a spinoff built around LAPD Det. Renée Ballard.

The character was introduced to the world in The Late Show, a 2017 novel by Michael Connelly, creator of the Harry Bosch character who is the subject of 24 Connelly novels.

Det. Ballard recurs in four Bosch novels, but she takes center stage in the new series. Will Harry Bosch make an appearance in “Ballard”? It seems likely.

“Ballard” is the second spinoff of “Bosch,’” which starred Titus Welliver in the title role. The first spinoff was “Bosch: Legacy.”

In “Ballard,” Renée Ballard is a gung-ho, take-no-prisoners queen of the cold case squad. When she’s not out catchin’ waves, she’s catchin’ crooks.

When Ballard’s not in the cold water of the Pacific, she is in hot water with LAPD higher-ups who are fed up with her refusal to play by the rules.

But rules be damned. It is Ballard’s way or the highway -- specifically, the Pacific Coast Highway, where she can be found driving in her really cool vintage Toyota wagon on a surfin’ safari to unwind from the pressures of her police work.

Played by the actress known only as Maggie, Q, 46 (photo above), Ballard is single, and lives with her mother in the kind of beach house everybody wants, but can never find.

In Episode One of “Ballard,” her backstory is unwrapped slowly. Apparently, something happened on a past case that resulted in her reassignment to the Cold Case Squad.

In the episode, we learn that the squad is the least-respected, most inconsequential posting in the whole department, except for one thing: One of the cold cases is the unsolved murder of the daughter of a prominent city councilman, and he is demanding action.

Having said all this and set up all this, the end result is a show that is cut from worn-out cloth. How often have we seen cold-case squads on TV? How many unorthodox cops leading units of outliers have we seen too?

What is happening here is what’s happening all over streaming nowadays: Myriad TV shows in all categories that are being produced for streaming are often no better or worse than their counterparts on so-called legacy television.

Ever since the emergence of subscription streaming, the “streaming” brand has been the kinds of shows you could not find on the old networks. 

Like HBO’s pay-cable model long ago, streaming shows were special. Now many of them are not.

“Ballard” is not a bad show. But it is like so many cop shows we have all seen since the 1990s that it is reasonable to ask: What’s the point?

“Ballard” starts streaming on Wednesday (July 9) on Amazon Prime Video.