Detroit 1-8-7 signs off

It was a rough week in this city for underdogs.

We said goodbye to the Red Wings, who mounted a three-game winning streak but fell just short of a series win. Detroit Public Schools' emergency financial manager Robert Bobb bid adieu to the city, after disclosing his fight with cancer during his tenure. And "Detroit 1-8-7", an ABC cop show set and shot in the Motor City, lost its bid for another season. While the show had some early missteps (soda, anybody?), the cast of Hollywood transplants truly embraced Detroit. We saw and heard them genuinely fall in love with the D, and proclaim that message to the national media. We'll be sorry to see them go.

Excerpt:

For a while, "Detroit 1-8-7" embraced our underdog spirit and ran with it. Somehow, the characters coalesced into a portrait of what gives underdogs the hope to keep going. With their humor, despair, grace and frustration, the characters played by James McDaniel, Michael Imperioli and the other actors had begun to represent the real population of metro Detroiters who aren't giving up, no matter how many times Detroit's issues are borrowed by outsiders for a punch line or a put-down.

Click here to read the rest of Julie Hinds' farewell.