Chicago PD was a better show than I expected. Jason Beghe plays a COP THAT WON'T PLAY BY THE RULES, which I think is a pretty generic trope. He's no Vic Mackey, but I think it's a pretty good casting match. I found the show maybe a little too self-consciously gritty in terms of the comically OTT gore, the premise of the pilot episode, and right down to the occasionally Gonzo camera pans... and the cliffhanger ending, which involves a Supervillain kidnapping a main character's kid!!!!! was pretty stupid. But as far as a totally generic cop show goes, I felt like mostly it was decently written and acted and showed more promise than most of the procedural cop stuff I've seen in the last few years.
The Assets was an unusual pilot. It felt very old. Not, like, a period piece--although it obviously is a period piece. But the kinds of actors, the writing, the really slow pacing, and the intense focus on wonky details of spying rather than character or thematic work made it feel like a film or miniseries from the 70s. The colour grading is pretty overwhelming. It's weird that the main character is clearly supposed to be the CIA agent that's selling out info to the Russians, but the pilot focused pretty near exclusively on one of his female coworkers. I'm not surprised no one watched this on a broadcast network, this had obscure cable network written all over it. It felt like a period Rubicon to me almost, actually. Or, like, All The President's Men... I dunno.
The second half of The 7.39 is definitely weaker, as the payoff is less interesting than the build-up. Some of the scenes get a little cliche, with one of the two affair-havers trying to spin the affair into a life together and the other not. A notable high point in the second half is Olivia Colman's performance as the wife of the male lead. She loses her shit at him in an entirely honest and realistic way. The closing tag to the show flash-forwards 2 years later, which disappointed me because the resolution ends up being a little convenient. As a whole I liked the work though, I think it'd be a pretty decent film if it were shown in cinema, I reckon. Nitpick alert: You can't show two people having a graphic affair in a hotel room due to intense emotional and sexual attraction and do the stupid bedsheets-covering-the-bodies as they roll around thing.