Have you been watching?Television

Have you been watching ... Ray Donovan?

This dark drama about a Los Angeles 'fixer' is flawed, but with a bold tone, and strong cast including Jon Voight and Liev Schreiber, it has plenty of potential

In this era of dark, complex shows stuffed with anti-heroes, it can be hard for a new drama to make its mark. When Sky Atlantic first announced it had bought Ray Donovan, Ann Biderman's noir-ish show about a Hollywood fixer and his family, my reaction was: "It looks great, but do I really have room for another brooding leading man in my life?"

But with five episodes to go, I'm glad I stuck with it because Ray Donovan, while certainly flawed, is much more interesting than its initial premise – that our lead can fix the lives of celebrities but has no control over his own – suggested.

Whether you agree will largely depend on what sort of show you were hoping for. If you turned on Ray Donovan wanting a TV version of Harvey Keitel's scenes in Pulp Fiction or a serious Entourage with more violence and less whining about dates with agent's daughters then it may have been a disappointment. Indeed, one of the most notable things about the drama is how little Ray's work has featured as the series has progressed. Instead Biderman, the woman behind the bleakly brilliant cop drama Southland, is far more interested in exploring the Donovans' poisonous family dynamic than she is in acerbic commentary about Hollywood's dream factory.

At times it can seem a little forced, as though Biderman and her writers are so desperately trying to write the new Sopranos that they forgot to bring anything original to the table (and in the process criminally wasted the wonderful Paula Malcolmson as Ray's wife Abby, who is reduced to nagging, whining and moping about her life – she's a Carmela-redux without the warmth or vulnerability). That is countered, however, by a sense of creeping menace and the writing team's willingness to take risks with tone, pace and payoffs.

One of the more interesting things about the show is its refusal to pull its punches where family patriarch Mickey is concerned. Mickey, played by Jon Voight with the permanently present grin of a shark in a tank of goldfish, is not a good man. More importantly, he has never been a good man. He gives loyalty to no one, is without an altruistic bone in his body and has screwed up his sons for so long and in so many different ways that it's a miracle any of them are actually functioning. From the casual cruelty of his remark that his abused son Bunchy won his million dollar payoff against the Catholic church "the hard way", to the revelation that he's working with an FBI agent to possibly bring down Ray, he lacks any redeeming qualities.

Yet if Mickey is a monster, then so too is Ray. As this series has progressed it has become increasingly clear that Ray (an enjoyably grumpy Liev Schreiber ) is no one's hero, not even his family's. Instead, what we are watching is a man slowly falling apart, thanks in part to his rage at the world. Despite his horrific past, it's not really the world's fault that Ray is angry – it's something innate. With each episode we increasingly feel as though Ray might be the problem rather than the solution; as though he, like his malignant father, might be the nightmare rather than the man who makes it go away.

That creeping sense of unease is assisted by a strong support cast – we genuinely care about poor Bunchy and fading boxer Terry (not least because Dash Mihok and Eddie Marsan are doing solid work in fleshing out their roles) while James Woods has brought his usual slithering menace to the part of Whitey Bulger-style gangster Sully. Ray Donovan compels in the quiet moments when sweet-natured Terry fumbles towards love or as the aimless Bunchy tentatively takes steps towards some sort of life. When the show takes a chance with its material, forgets about emulating past shows and concentrates instead on letting its outstanding cast play off each other, then glimpses of another, more coherent drama shine through.

This show isn't perfect. It can be clunky and occasionally plays a little too much like a send-up of a horrible Boston family, with the standard cliches (boxers, drink, fighting, big-haired women, abuse by priests) ticked off, but Ray Donovan still compels. Most intriguingly, with five episodes left, I have no real idea where it's going. Is it about Ray and Mickey and their inevitable confrontation or, as seems increasingly likely, does Biderman have some other more complicated endgame in mind? Will the whole thing end up a shaggy dog tale or is there one final sting? Despite the occasional misstep, I'm still desperate to find out.

Ray Donovan is on Sky Atlantic, Tuesdays, 10pm

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