- California - M.L. Costa
Southland emerges as yet another police drama. It attempts to take a gritty and realistic look at what it is like to protect and serve the people of a troubled area of Los Angeles, but in the short life of the show, it has been bounced from NBC to TNT, cancelled, renewed, and now its fate hangs in the balance of ratings.
Timeline of Southland
Southland initially aired in spring 2009 on NBC. It was given the Thursday time slot left vacant by the completion of the long running medical drama ER , but it seemed audiences did not appreciate the shift from medicine to law. Ratings steadily slipped as the first six episodes aired, but NBC still selected to renew the show.
Later, NBC reversed its decision, canceling the show, at which point TNT picked it up and began to promote the show as a new series, finally premiering it on January 12, 2009 in a special commercial free presentation of the first episode.
Cast of Southland
The standout performances are given by Benjamin McKenzie as the new police officer, Ben Sherman, and Regina King as Detective Lydia Adams. However, the cast generally exhibits strong acting ability, allowing their characters to become interesting in spite of the poorly constructed show in which the characters exist.
Filming of Southland
Southland makes use of a lot of location filming in an attempt to add to its sort after authenticity, but the “gritty” film style and look of the show is drab and dizzying.
The show is so caught up in attempting to appear realistic that it neglects the more important ability of giving its audience information, and sadly, the “artistic” camera angels and general filming is weak, ineffective, and unimpressive.
Reviewing Southland
Southland is simply boring, despite its good cast, and it is not difficult to understand how it steadily lost viewers when the first six episodes aired on NBC.
It falls short of having the impact of superior shows such as Law and Order or its spin-off Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, and far from being gritty, the plots are recycled clichés, better explored in previous dramas.
Furthermore, the storylines are handled in a somehow patronizing way. Although the producers probably possess good intentions, the show comes across as a production put together by people who have more direct experience of crusading sympathy rather than being a cop or resident of a troubled city area.
Yet, the chief difficulty of the show is that it is appalling inadequate in regards to giving viewers essential information, even to the point of confusingly printing information in small font-size interspersed between credits.
Southland and Men of a Certain Age on TNT
Southland and Men of a Certain Age each recently premiered on TNT and both use similar filming techniques.
Both aim to be realistic slices of life experiences and both got off to a slow start with their first episodes. In fairness to Southland, it may improve as did Men of a Certain, but Men of a Certain Age showed more potential from its first episode.
Equally, Men of a Certain Age can more easily achieve its goal because it is more likely to be able to find a production team who can work from experience about middle aged men.
Elizabeth Fredericks - Elizabeth Fredericks is a graduate of Oxford University, and she has worked as a freelance writer since her first paid assignment as a ...
