While Prime Video’s detective drama has relied heavily on the charms of its original star, Titus Welliver, until now, the prequel series won’t continue this trend. It is always hard for a show to move on from its original star. Some franchises have pulled this off admirably, while some have sunk without the presence of their most familiar faces, but the transition is never easy. This is doubly true for Prime Video’s iconic detective drama.

Lasting for seven seasons, this show was based on the novel series of the same name by author Michael Connelly. The series followed Titus Welliver’s irascible eponymous LAPD homicide detective as he balanced hunting serial killers with rooting out corruption in his own police department. Gritty and intense, the original series and its three-season sequel blended the dark edge of The Wire with the more conventional thrills of network TV cop shows like Law & Order.

The show is Bosch, and its sequel series, Bosch: Legacy, relied on Welliver’s central role just as much as the original. The spinoff, Ballard, starring Maggie Q as the titular detective specializing in cold cases, expanded the universe of Prime Video’s successful detective franchise a little further, but it is important to note that Welliver’s Bosch still appeared in three of the show’s first ten episodes. That trend will soon end with Bosch: Start of Watch, a prequel focusing on the title character’s early years on the force.

Bosch: Start of Watch Won’t Feature Titus Welliver’s Bosch

The likelihood of Welliver appearing in Bosch: Start of Watch was always minimal thanks to two other, unrelated crime thriller shows starring the actor. Welliver’s upcoming period thriller The Westies and his supporting role in Netflix’s The Night Agent season 4 mean the star is too busy to return as Bosch, with the actor officially confirming that he won’t have a cameo narrating the story or anything like that.

Even though Ballard and the prequel Bosch: Start of Watch are keeping the franchise alive, Welliver is now too busy to return as Bosch himself. Fortunately, the Bosch franchise can continue without Welliver’s return, as evidenced by Ballard’s season 1 success. The casting of Gotham’s Cameron Monaghan as the young Bosch proves that Bosch: Start of Watch has a compelling new star of its own, and the franchise’s expansion even in Welliver’s absence arguably cements Bosch’s status as an all-time great cop show.

Bosch: Start of Watch’s Titus Welliver Absence Breaks With A Classic Prequel Tradition

Image via Everett Collection

Unlike Ballard, which had a couple of returning characters like Bosch himself, Start of Watch will have a brand-new cast. Since the likes of CSI and Law and Order are the only earlier cop show franchises that created spinoffs successful enough to work on their own, such as CSI: Miami and Law & Order: SVU, this is a huge step for the Prime Video series.

However, while the Bosch franchise’s next step is an impressive one, it is not without its risks. Both the CSI and Law & Order franchises focused on entire police departments rather than specific individual detectives, whereas Bosch’s title alone proves it is more of a character study than an ensemble piece. Bosch: Start of Watch will continue to focus on Bosch, which will make it hard to paper over Welliver’s absence.

From Dexter: Original Sin to Young Sheldon, it is a longtime tradition for the original stars of hit shows to return for their prequels in some capacity. Thus, the news that MGM+’s Bosch: Start of Watch will continue the story of Prime Video’s Bosch without Titus Welliver’s presence could be a hard sell for longtime viewers, even though Monaghan’s younger version of the troubled detective is likely to be an interesting reinvention of Connelly’s familiar character.

Release Date

2015 – 2021-00-00

Network

Prime Video

Showrunner

Eric Ellis Overmyer

Directors

Alex Zakrzewski, Ernest R. Dickerson, Patrick Cady, Aaron Lipstadt, Adam Davidson, Daisy von Scherler Mayer, Kevin Dowling, Neema Barnette, Tim Hunter, Zetna Fuentes, Christine Moore, Jim McKay, Laura Belsey, Matt Earl Beesley, Phil Abraham, Roxann Dawson, Sarah Pia Anderson, Stephen Gyllenhaal, Tara Nicole Weyr, Thomas Carter, Hagar Ben-Asher

Writers

Jeffrey Alan Fiskin, Tom Bernardo, Elle Johnson, John Mankiewicz, Shaz Bennett, Alex Meenehan, Katie Pyne, Osokwe Vasquez, Lolis Eric Elie, Jessica Kivnik, Mitzi Roberts