By Lisa de Moraes
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., July 15
FX network having been, its president boasts, a groundbreaker in developing high-quality scripted basic-cable series, it will now become a trailblazer in killing off high-quality scripted basic-cable series. To that end, "Nip/Tuck" will end its run in early 2011 and "The Shield" begins its swan-song season in September, FX execs announced Tuesday.
To wrap up "Nip/Tuck," FX has ordered 19 more episodes beyond the 22 episodes for the current season. It's also ordered 39 episodes of its comedy series "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," which should get it into at least 2011, FX prez John Landgraf told TV critics at Thank God We're Still Working Summer TV Press Tour 2008.
"One of the reasons you see us announcing the end of 'The Shield' well in advance . . . and announcing now that 'Nip/Tuck' is going to end in three years is we're publicly challenging ourselves and saying we're not going to wait until the light is blinking red," Landgraf said.
"We're going to plan for the orderly and dignified ending of great shows and we're going to launch new great shows at the same time, and we're going to get the new shows on the air before the shows that have been the great shows as part of our brand are over," he said. "I feel very confident over time that we're going to achieve that. We decided we're going to achieve it and we're planning to achieve it."
To recap: Old Great Shows dead, with dignity. New Great Shows launched, with dignity. NGS's up and running with dignity before OGS's become dignifiedly dead.
To illustrate, Landgraf announced FX has ordered a comedy called "Testees" (from Kenny Hotz, who did Comedy Central's dignified "Kenny vs. Spenny") about two best friends and roommates in their 30s who work as test subjects for "TESTICO," a "less than normal" product-testing facility. The two guys spend most of their time trying to lead their lives while waiting for the side effects from the products to wear off.
"Testees" will premiere Oct. 9, right after a new episode of "It's Always Sunny."
As part of this Dignified Drama Death March, FX intends to frown on any drama series that tries to run past 100 episodes. This commitment to under-100-ness came to be over a number of years, Landgraf said. He and "Shield" creator Shawn Ryan and others "ultimately came to the decision about what the large interior structure of 'The Shield' would be narratively, not just within episodes, but across multiple seasons, and to the notion that we would finish it after seven years.
"I think that decision was a big decision and a kind of fateful decision for FX and other channels that do serialized dramas," he said.
Serialized dramas, he noted, are the best work in drama on television because procedural dramas (think "CSI" or "Law & Order" or "House") are "basically about catching the bad guys or solving diseases or whatever they're about," Landgraf sniffed.
The writers of serialized dramas, on the other hand, are "taking on social commentary; they're taking on grand sweeping questions about human characters and human nature. To me, those are the best shows on television."
But, such lofty goals come at a steep price, he continued.
"If we want to go after that brass ring, I think we have to bear the challenges of limited shelf life, and we've made a decision. . . . I don't think you will ever see a drama on FX -- and maybe if I'm lucky enough to be here seven years from now you'll be challenging me and calling me to task for that -- I don't know if you will ever see a drama go more than 100 episodes on FX."
This sounds like a bold statement but is instead a very safe gamble, given the likelihood that none of the TV critics in the room will still have jobs covering the industry in seven years to remind him and chide him.
Though he had much to promote, Landgraf took a few minutes to reminisce about the old days when HBO was the ne plus ultra of scripted serialized-series programming:
"I think a number of you interviewed me in the past couple years about HBO and I said to all of you that I thought that it was really unfair to expect HBO to achieve the heights that it had when it really owned this segment of the television marketplace," Landgraf simpered.
"It had 'Sex and the City' and 'The Sopranos' and 'Six Feet Under.' There's just more competition. . . . It's a very, very challenging thing for people who do what I do for a living and the people at Showtime and HBO, and other basic cable networks."
* * *
Thursday morning, on the chance some history might be made, more than the usual number of TV critics and reporters attending Thank God We're Still Working Summer TV Press Tour 2008 are likely to rouse themselves at the ungodly hour of 5:30 a.m. Beverly Hills time to find out which shows and thespians are nominated for the 60th annual Primetime Emmy Awards.
New ground would be broken, for instance, should a basic-cable series be among the five nominees for best drama series. Among the 10 finalists for those five slots are the pilot episode of FX's Glenn Close-starring legal thriller "Damages" and the pilot of "Mad Men," AMC's stylish drama about Madison Avenue in the '60s.
In 11 series and acting categories, 25 semifinalists are from basic cable -- the highest total basic cable has ever achieved in Emmy semi-recognition.
However, no basic cable series are in contention for best comedy series.
We know this because, for the first time, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences this year released the names of the top 10 contenders for both best comedy and best drama series.
The academy decided not to officially announce the top 10 in the glamour acting derbies, but to get that info you need only turn to the Gold Derby Web site, run by the Los Angeles Times, to see the names compiled by Tom O'Neil, the trophy show wag who gets the names from voting academy members and other sources.
According to O'Neil, basic-cable thespians are everywhere in contention for Emmy noms this year -- mostly at the expense of their broadcast-TV compatriots.
For instance, last year, just three of the 10 contenders in the race for best actress in a drama series were working on a basic-cable series; this year only three of the 10 are working on a broadcast TV series. This year's basic-cable hopefuls include Close from FX's "Damages," Minnie Driver from FX's "The Riches," Elisabeth Moss from AMC's "Mad Men," Mary McDonnell from Sci Fi's "Battlestar Galactica" and Kyra Sedgwick from TNT's "The Closer."
The category of best drama actor, while not quite so jammed with basic-cable actors, according to O'Neil, does include Eddie Izzard of "The Riches," Denis Leary from FX's "Rescue Me" and Bryan Cranston, who never got any Emmy respect when he played a crazy father on Fox broadcast network's "Malcolm in the Middle" but who is a semifinalist now for playing a meth-dealing, terminally ill father on AMC's "Breaking Bad."
Actors from basic-cable comedy series did not make the same headway. The only nominees are Tony Shalhoub of USA's "Monk" and Sarah Silverman of "The Sarah Silverman Program," whose unlikely nomination marks the first time Comedy Central has gotten this close to a nom in one of the so-called glam categories.
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