The Son He Never Wanted, and Now Never Had

We recently saw the release of the 2024 Beverly Hills Cop legacy sequel, Axel F, the first time the Axel Foley character has been seen on the big screen (or, well, any screen, since it was a NetflixOriginally started as a disc-by-mail service, Netflix has grown to be one of the largest media companies in the world (and one of the most valued internet companies as well). With a constant slate of new internet streaming-based programming that updates all the time, Netflix has redefined what it means to watch TV and films (as well as how to do it). release) since 1994. Thirty years between sequels is a fair bit of time, to be sure, and it was surprising just how well the film worked considering the lengthy time away from Eddie Murphy’s Axel Foley and his antics. It was a welcome return to the series, but it didn’t have to be the first time we saw the franchise’s return since that three-quel.

Back in 2013, CBS put together a pilot for a Beverly Hills Cop TV series. Titled simply Beverly Hills Cop, this would have been a police procedural featuring the son of Axel Foley, played by Brandon T. Jackson, working the Beverly Hills beat after moving to the coast from Detroit. Like the films, it would have focused the action in California, letting Aaron Foley do his Detroit thing among the posh hobs and nobs of Beverly Hills. Since it would have been on CBS, the show would have had a case-of-the-week structure, and followed the usual procedural expectations. Considering the film franchise that birthed it, itself a series of police action procedural films, that wasn’t such a bad fit.

So what happened? Well, there are a number of factors that apparently went into the decision to not move past the filmed pilot for the series. For starters, while Eddie Murphy made an appearance in the pilot, playing Axel Foley, he was not contractually bound to continue appearing in the series. CBS apparently really wanted him in the show (since his appearances tested well during the focus groups, at least according to Eddie Murphy) and without the comedian, the network wasn’t interested in developing the series further. Couple that with the expense of filming on location in Beverly Hills, and the relative age of the franchise without another entry in the series before this, and you can see why the network decided to pass.

Credit where it’s due, though, I don’t think the pilot itself was all that bad. It is a little rough around the edges, like most pilots are, without performances that hadn’t quite settled yet, and characters that are all sketched just a little thin. These are things that could have been fixed, over time, as a season of the show ran its course. Pilots are, of course, hard to judge on their own when you don’t know where the series is going to go. Unlike some pilots I’ve reviewed for this site (the Clerks pilot, the Wonder Woman pilot), this show both knew who it wanted to be and had promise it could get there. It was simply axed before it could really find its feet.

In the series we’re introduced to Aaron Foley (Jackson), who has been working an undercover drug-running case for the last year. While at a drop with lead drug dealer, Dante (B.J. Britt), the whole crew gets shot when a rival crew shows up. Aaron is the only one to survive, but he’s unable to stop the other guys from stealing all the money and making off with it. They even killed Dante’s girl, Renee (Meagan Tandy), who Aaron was sweet on, giving out Detroit transplant a reason to continue pursuing this case.

Taking the matter to the Beverly Hills P.D., which Dante had a connection to a Beverly Hills-based tech bro, the chief (Christine Lahti) assigns two local detectives to the case with Aaron (Sheila Vand and David Denman). They’re far more by-the-book than Aaron, though, so like his father working cases before him, Aaron has to go “off the reservation” more than once to track down the evidence he needs to find out who is responsible and just what their real goal was. And if, in the process, Aaron gets a little help from his dad, well then that might just make the case happen a little more smoothly.

In function, the Beverly Hills Cop pilot feels very much like any other Beverly Hills Cop case. Aaron is in the wrong place at the right time, and catches a lead that sends him to Beverly Hills. There he lies, cheats, and cons his way through the case, doing everything via back channels and vaguely illegal means, all so he can find the bad guys and save the day. It’s hard to judge Aaron too poorly for this since that’s what Axel would do in all of his movies, although certainly all the evidence Aaron would have gathered in the case would be considered inadmissible, something the series has to admit. It was easier in the films when everything could just be killed, but the pilot makes sure to leave some people alive. I guess that’s a win?

I don’t really think we should ignore all of Aaron’s illegal antics (breaking into a mansion, illegally duplicating a set of keys he stole from someone, then using those to break into that person’s office) since, had this series been picked up for further episodes, presumably this would have been a regular occurrence from Aaron. There are only so many times your hero can break the law in pursuing the case before he starts to look like a “bad cop”. This isn’t The Shield, it’s a far more light-hearted procedural, so this part of the series would either have to have been sanded down or, more likely, the series, long term, would have bumped up against more than a few people complaining about it’s message. “Should bad cops be allowed to do what they want in the service of catching worse people?” A show like The Shield could get away with this because that was part of its message. Beverly Hills Cop wouldn’t get the same latitude, I’m sure.

However, if we can set that aside (since this was just one episode and it went nowhere, so we don’t have to worry about long term consequences) the episode was a breezy and light affair. The pilot neatly boils down the essence of the Beverly Hills Cop formula into a 45-ish minute episode, giving us all the key beats we need while establishing the characters, the location, and what to expect from the series going forward. It handles this far better than most pilots, and it does enough groundwork that I think, had the show been picked up, it could have fleshed things out better and really developed into an interesting show. This one episode isn’t incredibly deep or interesting, but there was something here that could have worked, with time.

Certainly I think Jackson’s Aaron isn’t a bad lead for the series. He has a little more attitude than his dad, a little less of the comedic snark. Anyone looking for another Axel would have been disappointed here as Aaron is certainly his own character, but I do think he works. Jackson made for a decent lead for the series, just entertaining enough to carry some jokes, serious enough to feel like a credible cop. Certainly, for a TV pilot, he fit the bill well and I think, again, given time he could have really grown into this character. For a pilot, it works.

I actually think, despite reports to the contrary, that the worst part of the series was Eddie Murphy. He feels out of place here, appearing in scenes without most of the other characters, like he was stitched in via reshoots so that the show could have more connection to the main films. Murphy feels like it’s phoning it in, just reading the script without putting his panache into it. This was a paycheck for him and he didn’t care about the show (as evidenced by the fact that he didn’t want anything to do with it after the pilot was filmed) and his performance matches that.

I’m not surprised the pilot wasn’t picked up, but I think there was potential for it to grow into a good series if it had been given the chance. Instead, this one episode is a footnote in the franchise, and it doesn’t even fit into the continuity now since Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F completely overwrites its place and story. It didn’t get a chance to really live, but that doesn’t mean it should have been completely discarded either. It’s a curiosity for the franchise, but a decent one, and I think maybe the elements of this show that worked, like Aaron Foley, should have been brought forward into future works for the franchise. Certainly I’d rather go back and watch this again than Beverly Hills Cop III any day.