Fan Forum - View Single Post - News and Articles #15: New show means a lot more news!

**LoveBEN** · 04-16-2009, 10:27 AM

Today's news:

Ben Mackenzie on the "The Today Show" 4/16/2009
Ben McKenzie and Regina King - Entertainment Buzz (April 2009)
Gritty new police drama is fast growing in popularity

'Southland' already showing indications of being a TV hit

There was a moment late in last week's pilot episode of Southland -- the new ensemble drama from ER writer-producer John Wells and Public Enemies screenwriter Ann Biderman-- when a rookie police officer, Ben Sherman, played by The O.C.'s Benjamin McKenzie, sat in a hospital corridor, emotionally exhausted after his first day on the job. He was in his street clothes, and he looked as if he'd been through an emotional ringer.
"Are you a cop?" an African-American teenage girl asked him accusingly. Her older brother, whom she idolized, was in emergency surgery after being mistaken for a gang member by teenagers in a rival gang.
Sherman took a long pause, and eyed the girl soulfully.
"Yeah," he said. "I am."
It was a defining moment in the character's life, and in Southland itself.
There was a temptation to have McKenzie's character answer 'No,' writer Ann Biderman admitted earlier this year in Los Angeles.
"When you see that, you recognize the hellish day he's had, the tremendous vicissitudes," Biderman said. "He's growing aware of just how difficult the job's going to be."
For McKenzie, playing a rookie in the Los Angeles Police Department who grew up in Beverly Hills was an opportunity to examine the contrast between living the good life and working the mean streets, and how someone in that situation either adapts or washes out.
As it is, his hardscrabble colleagues are slow to accept him as one of their own, dubbing him -- only half-jokingly -- "Tori Spelling."
Southland is closer in look and feel to hard-hitting police dramas such as The Shield and NYPD Blue than popular forensic procedurals like CSI, Criminal Minds and Bones.
In the opener, a promising high-school athlete is gunned down in a drive-by shooting; a child is kidnapped off the street and murdered by a seemingly kindly neighbour; and a handcuffed gang member shoots an arresting officer by snatching a gun hidden behind his back.
That unpredictability -- the sudden bursts of violence, the emotional mood swings and the spiritual uplift that comes with unexpected, small victories -- were by design, Biderman said.
Biderman conceived the idea for Southland after coming across a seemingly simple statistic: Los Angeles, a city with 10 million people, has roughly 9,000 police officers.
New York City, a city with roughly eight million people, has nearly five times as many police officers: 44,000, according to Biderman.
The so-called "blue line" in Los Angeles is stretched thin, and scattered over 6,400 square kilometres with innumerable pockets and enclaves.
"Our intention," Wells explained, "is to be in the perspective of the police officers at all times, and see how they see this world, through their eyes."
Southland touched a nerve with viewers in its debut.
More than 1.3 million viewers tuned in across Canada on April 9 when Southland aired on CTV. Southland was the third most watched program of the night, behind CSI (2.3 million viewers on CTV) and Survivor (1.6 million on Global).
More than 10 million viewers watched in the U.S., where Southland premiered on NBC.
More tellingly, perhaps, Southland's audience grew in its second half-hour in both the U.S. and Canada -- an encouraging sign, and a possible early indicator of a hit.
In tone and feel, Southland echoes Boom town, the critically acclaimed 2002 drama created by Toronto-born screenwriter Graham Yost. Wells cited Boom town as one of his favourite and most inspirational TV dramas of the past 25 years.
"Boom town was a wonderful show that used some very specific narrative techniques, especially in its first season," Wells said. "Southland is similar, in that it's an attempt to get you to know a number of people who are actually doing a difficult job in a metropolitan area that almost has the feel of a Third World city.
"It is not about the crime of the week. It has a very different narrative feel to a lot of the procedural dramas you see on television right now."
Southland is filmed in a deliberately unnerving style, full of jerky, hand-held close-ups and bleached, sun-washed daylight. The twilight and nighttime scenes are filmed with specially developed night-vision cameras, first used by filmmaker Michael Mann in his 2004 nighttime street thriller Collateral and later in his feature-film followup to the hit '80s TV series Miami Vice.
Wells says Southland's depiction of "the code" -- the unspoken bond between police officers -- owes its origins in part to a conversation he had with a Los Angeles police officer while researching the pilot episode.
The officer was an African-American sergeant assigned to the predominantly African-American neighbourhood of South Central L.A.
"I asked him . . . how he handled the tension between white and black," Wells recalled. "He looked at me and said, 'I'm not black. I'm blue.'"

Gritty new police drama is fast growing in popularity
globeandmail.com: TV rescue idea is no smarter than a bad reality show

Southland (NBC, CTV, 10 p.m.) also started last week, very strongly. On the surface, it's predictable – new, young LAPD officer Ben Sherman (Ben McKenzie, above) is introduced to the harsh reality of the streets by a cynical old-hand, Officer Cooper (Michael Cudlitz). But the show has a toughness to it that never lets up. The audience sees L.A.'s mean, vicious streets through the young officer's eyes. And by heavens, it's a grim place of poverty and hate. This is not The Shield, but it's good, compelling TV drama for grown-ups. And recommended