Will Trent is, by all accounts, a very enjoyable police procedural that just happens to have one of the dullest names on TV

We want to be very clear, from the jump, that nothing we’re about to say is meant to be making fun of Will Trent the TV show, Will Trent the character, or the Will Trent book series, all of which, we have been assured, are pretty good and entertaining examples of the procedural cop drama formula. It’s certainly not Will Trent’s fault that simply reading the name of his ABC TV show makes our eyes glaze over, minds filled with images of an actuary slowly filing paperwork, instead of Certified Handsome Man Ramón Rodríguez cracking wise and solving cases. (It’s kind of the fault of Will Trent creator Karin Slaughter, who, we’d argue, has a much better name to be the protagonist of a series of highly entertaining potboilers, written by someone with a very boring name, possibly Will Trent.)

Anyway, ABC certainly seems to like it: Deadline reports tonight that the network is renewing Will Trent for a third season, even as the show is still steadily cruising through its (reportedly improved) second. That’s presumably on the basis of the show’s ratings, which we would describe as “well-made TV cop procedural good,” bringing in more than 4 million viewers per week this season. (Which is up from the first season, suggesting America is hopping aboard the Will Trent Express, which, again, sounds like it exclusively services convention centers for aging dentists, but we digress.)

Created by Slaughter (which would also be a better name for a TV show, by the way) along with Liz Heldens and Daniel T. Thomsen, the series focuses on Trent, an investigator for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation whose style and approach. is heavily informed by growing up in Atlanta’s foster care system. Rodríguez stars as Trent, working alongside Erika Christensen, Iantha Richardson, Jake McLaughlin, and Sonja Sohn. He also has a little dog named Betty; Betty is extremely cute.