TVSquad

Just when I'd added Southland to my list of shows to spotlight in upcoming editions of "Gone Too Soon," now there are glimmers of hope for its future. After NBC unceremoniously dumped it before it premiered this season, in favor of more Dateline, fans and television pundits were stunned.

Executive producer John Wells has reportedly been in contact with the cast to tell them he has at least two cable networks interested in picking up Southland. The good news comes in two ways. One, the series gets to come back. And two, a cable network is a lot less likely to tamper with the storytelling style Southland was developing in its first season. NBC already had them de-emphasizing the larger cast and the serialized nature of their storytelling in the episodes they were filming for the new season.

Since January 2004, the UK's Shameless has been bringing to life the story of a drunken working-class father and his nine children. Snippets of this long-running hit; going into its seventh season; have aired in the US on BBC America and Sundance. And for five years, it's been in development hell.

The show has been tied to NBC, with Woody Harrelson in consideration for the lead role of Frank Gallagher, and more recently at HBO. Now, finally, original creator Paul Abbott and John Wells Prod. have signed a deal to bring Shameless to Showtime with William H. Macy in the lead.

Southland, the gritty new police drama from film producer Ann Biderman, puts the spotlight on the dark and grimy corners of Los Angeles as seen through the eyes of uniformed cops and plainclothes detectives. Unfortunately, the series premiere is mired in cop show clichés and forgets to deliver anything we haven't seen before.

The first episode – stream it now or watch it below, a week before it debuts on NBC – owes a lot to NYPD Blue, Homicide: Life on the Street and countless other cop shows that came before it. It's a procedural with a large cast about cops struggling to balance "the job" with their personal lives.

I think ER first started saying farewell like eight years ago or something. Then last year was the final season. Then this year was the final season. And now NBC has added three more episodes to the final season of ER to push the last episode back just a little bit more. Of course, the end result is that this season of ER is now 22 episodes which makes it the same length as any other normal season. It also gives them a little more time to come up with an excuse to renew the show for another year and make next season it's new final season. What else do you have going on NBC?

They'd have to move it to 9:00 though because of Jay Leno, but it's not like the NBC lineup is brimming with hits they'll have to shuffle around. Of course, there is new programming to think about. In fact, the deal that netted the additional three installments was part of a negotiation involving Warner Bros. TV and another show they've got in development called Police, about the ... uh ... police ... in LA.

NBC has had it pretty easy for the last fifteen years where Thursday nights at 10, 9 Central, are concerned. ER was locked in, and for the better part of that run was a dominant force. Now that the show is finally coming to an end, they need to start grooming a replacement. It looks like it could be a case of meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

ER executive producer, John Wells, has set up a new show, LAPD, at the network. It's an ensemble show that will follow the lives of police officers in Los Angeles and will be written by Ann Biderman. That's a solid choice as she won an Emmy for her work on NYPD Blue. The network has ordered a pilot and casting has begun. Another ER alum, Christopher Chulack, is on board to direct. Can it replace ER? Probably not completely. Remember, ER had a run as the number one show on television. That kind of success is hard to come by. Still, given the talent involved, it is something to look forward to.

[ via Cynopsis ]

If the comments section here is any indication, even though Smith was canceled rather quickly by CBS, it actually had a lot of fans. Of course, we didn't get 10 million comments, so "a lot" wasn't really enough.

TV Guide has a breakdown on why the show was canceled. It seemed like it could be a hit: West Wing/ER producer John Wells, big stars like Ray Liotta and Virginia Madsen, and lots of hype by CBS, but what happened? People have speculated that it was because the gang of crooks on the show weren't likable, but the magazine says that it was more the price of the show. Each episode cost about $3 million dollars!

I wonder how much that awful motorcycle chase with Simon Baker cost to film?

Abby  Lockhart has become the new Mark Greene.

As fans of the long-running ER know, Dr. Greene (Anthony Edwards) had some of the worst luck and unhappiness in the emergency room staff of County General. First, his wife leaves him, then he gets beaten up in the ER bathroom by a unknown assailant. Both his mother and father die in the same year, he's diagnosed with a brain tumor (which was successfully removed), his daughter feeds his newborn child Escasty, his brain tumor comes back, and he dies while in Hawaii. Needless to say, the man had no luck.

And now Abby (Maura Tierney) looks like she's wearing the albatross around her neck. Well, actually, she's been wearing it for several seasons now. It began when she was kicked out of medical school after her ex-husband failed to pay her tuition. Then, she had a rough set of relationships with Doctors Luka Kovac and John Carter. Her bi-polar mother stop taking her meds and her brother was diagnosed with the same mental disease as her mother. Last season she was kidnapped by a drug dealer who wanted Abby to treat an injured comrade.

 

I actually thought that the show should have done this a few seasons ago, during the debate between President Bartlett and Governor Richie. According to next week's TV Guide, The West Wing is thinking about doing a live debate between the characters played by Jimmy Smits and Alda, to air during the November sweeps. I think this is a fantastic idea. A debate scenario just screams to be shown live, with that "live" look instead of the filmed look (whenever a TV show has a scene that is supposed to be a live TV show, it never looks real). It would not only be exciting, it would give the show the gravitas and buzz it's been lacking for the past two years.