Sometimes you have to live with a series for a while before it begins to make sense

The Canadian series "Intelligence" (2006?) season one pilot episode, a 90-minute take, gets the season off to a great start, full of tension and odd twists, sets up a really interesting antagonism between Vancouver major crimes unit leader and her chief underling, with lots of overtones of interoffice rivalry, rivalry between agencies, racism, sexism, and the strange relations established between cops and crooks when the cops recruit spies within various criminal gangs. Episode was very compelling, but like so many of its type pretty hard to follow at times, especially because of some of the low-budget casting and directing: minor characters who mumble and are rather indistinguishable, totally forgettable names (and faces sometimes), murky lighting in some key scenes, exceptionally elliptical plot exposition. Still, I got enough of it to follow the story line and to want to see more of the series, which will I think unfold some of these narrative creases. I felt the same way to an extent after the first episode or two of The Wire - with some of these series, you have to live with them for a while before you understand and recognize the characters and their life stories. To try to give a brief summary of the pilot: Mary (?) being recruited by Canada CIA has to bring with her a # of inside sources in Vancouver crime; staff develops a list of such; the list is stolen from deputy (Ted?)'s car; they have to bring all the sources in; leading crime figure (Reardon) obtains the list; deal-making ensues.