TNT Dumps 'Southland'

[Mark Jeffries]

The gritty police drama, saved by TNT after NBC cancelled it after announcing a second season (allegedly as a sacrifice for the Jay Leno prime time show), ran five seasons and garnered a passionate cult audience, but never had the popularity of more mainstream shows on the channel's schedule like "Rizzoli and Isles" or the "Dallas" reboot:

http://www.thewrap.com/tv/article/southland-canceled-tnt-90831

[David Lynch]

The writing had been on the wall for a while. Most of the leads had pilots lined up before the season even finished filming and the final episode took all of the remaining plot arcs and (other than the cliffhanger) the finale pretty much wrapped up everyone's plot arcs.

On 10 May 2013 16:32, Mark Jeffries <spotl...@gmail.com> wrote:

The gritty police drama, saved by TNT after NBC cancelled it after announcing a second season (allegedly as a sacrifice for the Jay Leno prime time show), ran five seasons and garnered a passionate cult audience, but never had the popularity of more mainstream shows on the channel's schedule like "Rizzoli and Isles" or the "Dallas" reboot:

http://www.thewrap.com/tv/article/southland-canceled-tnt-90831

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David J. Lynch
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[PGage]

On Fri, May 10, 2013 at 10:37 PM, David Lynch <djl...@gmail.com> wrote:

The writing had been on the wall for a while. Most of the leads had pilots lined up before the season even finished filming and the final episode took all of the remaining plot arcs and (other than the cliffhanger) the finale pretty much wrapped up everyone's plot arcs.

I would put a somewhat more positive spin on this. I followed Southland from NBC through TNT, and I think it held up very well, and finished its 5th season at as high a level as most of its fans could reasonable have expected it to. The John Cooper character was as interesting and complex a cop as has appeared on most television programs, all the way to the end, and Lydia Adams, while not quite as original, was still well worth watching. I thought the show was always most pedestrian, and seemed to never really figure out what it was doing, with the Sammy character.

Five years was a good run, all things considered, and I am very appreciative TNT stepped up.

[David Lynch]

My point was mostly that it was already clear in every way but officially that it was through, not so much that it necessarily deserved to be over. I had a few high school classes with Ben McKenzie's brother, so I figured I might as well give it a shot and I ended up sticking with it for all five seasons. I've been watching less and less prime-time TV lately because there's so little of it that isn't too soapy for me or the same procedural week in and week out, so sticking with a show is actually a pretty big compliment to its quality. I'm pretty much right there with you on John Cooper, although from a slightly different perspective--he's about as interesting and complex a gay character has appeared on TV as long as I can remember.