• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, Yesterday

A new, very dark cop show coming to HBO on Sunday is made with the proficiency that has become common in the production of TV shows today.

But to what end? I tried my best to get on board with this new series from producer/writer Brad Inglesby -- creator of “Mare of Easttown” -- but the one-hour Episode One of “Task,” which I previewed on Thursday, just left me drained and irritable.

Like “Mare of Easttown,” “Task” is set in the environs in and around Philadelphia -- something that endeared me to the show at first as the script name-dropped various locations and other regional touchstones familiar to anyone who grew up there.

I guessed the locale from the sight of the first house façade shown early in the episode -- a house very common to the area, likely from the 1940s, and built with stone that was quarried nearby.

Then came the sound of KYW, the all-news radio station, and references to scrapple, the Blue Route (a local nickname for a stretch of highway), Acme Supermarkets (great place for hoagies), the Phillies and Widener College in Chester.

I made a long list of the local place names, but you get the picture. Only locals would appreciate such a list anyway.

Inglesby happens to be a local guy and, like M. Night Shyamalan, who is from the same place, he likes to set his productions close to home.

“Task” is short for “task force.” In the show, a crime wave has hit the area in which drug dealers and crack houses are being violently robbed.

Not that the local law enforcement authorities have any particular sympathy for the victims of these robberies, but the drug dealers who are being robbed are nevertheless crime victims, and the violence of the crimes is escalating.

The show’s task force -- made up of four FBI agents led by special agent Tom Brandis (Mark Ruffalo, above photo) -- is assigned to identify and arrest the trio of robbers in the space of four weeks.

So, why didn’t they just title the show “Task Force”? I’m guessing it is because “Task” is likely meant to have two meanings -- one refers to the difficult task of running down these crooks and the other refers to the task of managing personal crises and challenges.

In the personal-crises department, the main antagonists in this limited drama -- agent Brandis vs. the leader of the robbery gang (Tom Pelphrey) -- are both grieving the deaths of members of their families.

Thus, the two are positioned as more or less mirror images of each other -- to what end, I cannot say.

“Task” is dark both literally and figuratively. The action scenes -- which in Episode One consists of the bloody robberies -- take place at night in drug dens that are dimly lit at best.

As a result, these scenes become a little hard to follow. Who just got shot? Was it one of the robbers or one of the robbery victims? 

I tried to darken my own room as much as I could by closing the shade and turning off the lights, but I still could not discern exactly who shot whom.

As violent as the robberies are, I must admit they did not lack suspense. While these crimes choreographed for our enjoyment and entertainment were at times downright sickening, the personal lives of the cop and the criminal were in some ways darker.

At least the committing of the crimes came and went in a few minutes. The rest of the episode was given over to establishing the depth of the two antagonists’ personal pain and the state of their dysfunctional families and tension-filled households. 

This material is laid on so thick for the better part of an hour that I almost cried out to make it stop.

“Task” premieres Sunday, September 7, at 9 p.m. Eastern on HBO and HBO Max.