A&E is offering up some new reality programs to compliment their holy trinity of "Obsessed", "Intervention" and "Hoarders". "Runaway Squad", however, is a departure since rather than dealing with people and their compulsive disorders, it involves a Gene Simmons lookalike and wayward teens.
By virtue of the fact that the word "squad" is in the title, it's automatically awesome. The show follows the exploits of a goon squad of ex-NYPD cops hired to locate kids who are themselves exploited and/or missing. This includes the aforementioned Gene Simmons clone, complete with a Just For Men saturated coif, muscle t-shirt and concealed weapon, his spiral-permed wife, a bald guy, a guy with a big nose, and a dude who stalks the teens on the internet to find out when was the last time they tweeted. They get hired by parents whose teens have taken off for points unknown. Hopefully, they find the kids. In Episode 1, the job was done for them, since the kid returned home on her own.
The entire profession exists in some sort of netherworld of legality: they're not cops, but they go and shake people down (mostly off camera, but probably with said weapons) and presumably can take the kids off the streets against their will. I guess since they're minors and the parents are presumably shelling out the big bucks for the service, it's all good. Plus, the people they're shaking down aren't exactly pillars of society: we're talking about pimps and drug dealers - your general, garden-variety scum.
Watching the process of them narrowing down where the kids might be is fascinating (and probably something that happens on any number of police procedural shows, but I'm not trying to know anything about those). It's also beyond disturbing to follow the paths of these kids and to see how a girl from Long Island can end up in a gang and being held as a prostitute against her will, all at the age of 15.
Evidently, A&E aired this pilot back in December to determine if Gene and co. had the chops to run with a whole series and apparently, they do. So welcome to the home of Candy Finnegan and Dr. Shana, Gene.
