Sons of Anarchy

If Tony Soprano wore a helmet and rode a motorcycle, he…still wouldn’t be Clay (Ron ”Hellboy” Perlman), the huffy, top-dog hog straddler in the new biker-gang drama Sons of Anarchy. Echoing the crime-as-family-business model of The Sopranos, and written by a Shield vet, Kurt Sutter, the series runs on fumes of filial cliché Clay and his wife (Katey Sagal) are ornery and murderous, but her son Jax (Undeclared‘s Charlie Hunnam) is a sensitive biker avoiding extreme violence.

We’re supposed to admire Jax, but he just seems wimpy. Mad Men‘s Maggie Siff, as a hospital doctor in smoldering love with Jax, is much tougher — and would be a better protagonist. Maybe that’s the show FX should have invented to carry on The Shield‘s grungy legacy: Bedpans of Bedlam. C+