Post by Peach on Jun 22, 2005 13:04:34 GMT -5
Hi Gang
Even in the off-season, plenty of buzz about the show in the news!! Yeah, yeah, I know it just ended last week, but even so...anything that keeps our favorite show in the news is good!
Here's a couple excerpts from an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about the popularity of the "anti-hero" archetype - which of course mentions The Shield and our favorite bad-boy Vic Mackey!
Full article at:
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/22/DDGMNDBLFG26.DTL&type=tvradio
Relevant excerpts below:
They steal, they cheat, they lie, and we wouldn't want it any other way -- the timeless appeal of the anti-hero
- Tim Goodman
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Three years ago, "Sopranos" creator David Chase was surprised and dismissive of the notion that people more than liked Tony Soprano, his thug mafia character -- they actually considered him heroic.
"I think they find him interesting, and they're interested in the power games and the struggles that he has in that part of his life," Chase said. "But I don't think they find him heroic. I think they find him interesting, maybe funny, maybe they identify with his attempts to muddle through life. But I don't think they find him heroic."
One season later, it was clear to Chase that people had begun to treat Tony as a big teddy bear -- so he ratcheted up Tony's monstrous qualities. For Chase, the delineation was pretty clear: Tony Soprano was an anti-hero. You might like him despite it all, but he was not the good guy.
Maybe the reason television viewers liked Tony -- the reason they liked "The Sopranos" itself -- had more to do with the innate dramatic richness of flawed characters. The five best dramas on television each have some kind of anti-hero at their center. Those series are, in no particular order, "The Sopranos," "The Wire," "Deadwood" -- all on HBO; and "Rescue Me" and "The Shield," both on FX.
All five of those series are also on cable channels. Network television has always been more comfortable with true heroes -- good cops, great doctors, just lawyers. In a world of "Law & Order" spin-offs and "CSI" franchises, good almost always trumps evil in the 59th minute.
Networks have found high ratings and franchise hits with crime and punishment series -- shows like "Cold Case," "Crossing Jordan," "Without a Trace" -- because there is something comforting about perps being jailed and forensic evidence convicting killers. Network series almost never have an unrelenting anti-hero. The closest one was Dennis Franz on "NYPD Blue," but in the end his Sipowicz character became a saint. Fox's medical drama "House" has a refreshingly unlikable main character played by Hugh Laurie, and "24," another Fox hit, has Kiefer Sutherland breaking all kinds of local and international laws in the pursuit of justice. But other than his short-lived bout with heroin -- an addiction he willingly undertook to get closer to the bad guys, rather than, say, a raging case of off-duty alcoholism because the job is grinding him down -- Jack Bauer is a pretty straight arrow.
Unfortunately, none of the network shows that flirt with complicated lead characters -- anti-heroes -- are in[ the same league as the five series mentioned above. Any number of factors are at work there: "House" is mediocre when Laurie's not onscreen; the implausibility of "24" is wearing; and "NYPD Blue," the best of those series, simply ran out of gas. But it's also true that none of those shows truly embrace the flawed character, plumb the depths of their psyches to create a more complicated and, in the end, more intriguing character. They don't have the guts for it.
Here, then, is a look at the main anti-heroes of television's five best series:
skipping to the part about Mackey/Chiklis ...
Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) "The Shield," FX:
There have been relatively few personal makeovers as devastatingly effective as when Chiklis reinvented himself as a bald rogue cop on "The Shield," the controversial drama that put FX on the map (and started an impressive upgrade in content). A kind of "Kojak" on crack, Chiklis won an Emmy out of nowhere for this role -- an accomplishment almost unheard-of for a tiny network. This is a seminal drama series in that a fledgling, ad-supported cable channel decided it would boundary-push with ferocity. It took network television's most reliably formulaic concept -- the cop show -- and slammed it on its head. Mackey's anti-hero stance is easy to identify: a cop without morals, willing to plant evidence, intimidate and even kill people, to justify the ends, which means jail time for criminals.
Where Mackey's bad seed crosses his public duty is where the action is in "The Shield." The series challenges you with abhorrent behavior justified -- mostly -- because lots of law-abiding citizens are frustrated with the criminal justice system and a little aggressive vigilantism is tolerated for the greater good. That's the kind of slippery moral slope that has made "The Shield" so riveting these last four seasons. Chiklis can't be contained by the small screen. He imbibes this conflicted character, absorbs Mackey into his skin -- and that's the gateway for the viewer at home to acknowledge something worthwhile in the anti-hero. You want to like Chiklis -- and Mackey -- despite knowing better. That's a combination of sterling acting chops and pulp-noir writing for our modern times. And that's what a great drama will do to -- and for -- you.
_______________________
~peach
Even in the off-season, plenty of buzz about the show in the news!! Yeah, yeah, I know it just ended last week, but even so...anything that keeps our favorite show in the news is good!
Here's a couple excerpts from an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about the popularity of the "anti-hero" archetype - which of course mentions The Shield and our favorite bad-boy Vic Mackey!
Full article at:
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/22/DDGMNDBLFG26.DTL&type=tvradio
Relevant excerpts below:
They steal, they cheat, they lie, and we wouldn't want it any other way -- the timeless appeal of the anti-hero
- Tim Goodman
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Three years ago, "Sopranos" creator David Chase was surprised and dismissive of the notion that people more than liked Tony Soprano, his thug mafia character -- they actually considered him heroic.
"I think they find him interesting, and they're interested in the power games and the struggles that he has in that part of his life," Chase said. "But I don't think they find him heroic. I think they find him interesting, maybe funny, maybe they identify with his attempts to muddle through life. But I don't think they find him heroic."
One season later, it was clear to Chase that people had begun to treat Tony as a big teddy bear -- so he ratcheted up Tony's monstrous qualities. For Chase, the delineation was pretty clear: Tony Soprano was an anti-hero. You might like him despite it all, but he was not the good guy.
Maybe the reason television viewers liked Tony -- the reason they liked "The Sopranos" itself -- had more to do with the innate dramatic richness of flawed characters. The five best dramas on television each have some kind of anti-hero at their center. Those series are, in no particular order, "The Sopranos," "The Wire," "Deadwood" -- all on HBO; and "Rescue Me" and "The Shield," both on FX.
All five of those series are also on cable channels. Network television has always been more comfortable with true heroes -- good cops, great doctors, just lawyers. In a world of "Law & Order" spin-offs and "CSI" franchises, good almost always trumps evil in the 59th minute.
Networks have found high ratings and franchise hits with crime and punishment series -- shows like "Cold Case," "Crossing Jordan," "Without a Trace" -- because there is something comforting about perps being jailed and forensic evidence convicting killers. Network series almost never have an unrelenting anti-hero. The closest one was Dennis Franz on "NYPD Blue," but in the end his Sipowicz character became a saint. Fox's medical drama "House" has a refreshingly unlikable main character played by Hugh Laurie, and "24," another Fox hit, has Kiefer Sutherland breaking all kinds of local and international laws in the pursuit of justice. But other than his short-lived bout with heroin -- an addiction he willingly undertook to get closer to the bad guys, rather than, say, a raging case of off-duty alcoholism because the job is grinding him down -- Jack Bauer is a pretty straight arrow.
Unfortunately, none of the network shows that flirt with complicated lead characters -- anti-heroes -- are in[ the same league as the five series mentioned above. Any number of factors are at work there: "House" is mediocre when Laurie's not onscreen; the implausibility of "24" is wearing; and "NYPD Blue," the best of those series, simply ran out of gas. But it's also true that none of those shows truly embrace the flawed character, plumb the depths of their psyches to create a more complicated and, in the end, more intriguing character. They don't have the guts for it.
Here, then, is a look at the main anti-heroes of television's five best series:
skipping to the part about Mackey/Chiklis ...
Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) "The Shield," FX:
There have been relatively few personal makeovers as devastatingly effective as when Chiklis reinvented himself as a bald rogue cop on "The Shield," the controversial drama that put FX on the map (and started an impressive upgrade in content). A kind of "Kojak" on crack, Chiklis won an Emmy out of nowhere for this role -- an accomplishment almost unheard-of for a tiny network. This is a seminal drama series in that a fledgling, ad-supported cable channel decided it would boundary-push with ferocity. It took network television's most reliably formulaic concept -- the cop show -- and slammed it on its head. Mackey's anti-hero stance is easy to identify: a cop without morals, willing to plant evidence, intimidate and even kill people, to justify the ends, which means jail time for criminals.
Where Mackey's bad seed crosses his public duty is where the action is in "The Shield." The series challenges you with abhorrent behavior justified -- mostly -- because lots of law-abiding citizens are frustrated with the criminal justice system and a little aggressive vigilantism is tolerated for the greater good. That's the kind of slippery moral slope that has made "The Shield" so riveting these last four seasons. Chiklis can't be contained by the small screen. He imbibes this conflicted character, absorbs Mackey into his skin -- and that's the gateway for the viewer at home to acknowledge something worthwhile in the anti-hero. You want to like Chiklis -- and Mackey -- despite knowing better. That's a combination of sterling acting chops and pulp-noir writing for our modern times. And that's what a great drama will do to -- and for -- you.
_______________________
~peach