“Southland” is close to landing at TNT.
The cable network began conversations with corporate sibling Warner Bros. TV, which produces the cop drama, shortly after “Southland” was abruptly canceled by NBC earlier this month.
Though a deal has not been completed, it now appears likely.
It will be interesting to see if new episodes (besides the 7 produced and aired last season on NBC and the 6 produced but not aired yet for this season) are produced as part of the deal. The economics of picking up the episodes that have already been produced may be quite different than those for producing new episodes.
Great news! I Love Southland, i now i love TNT too
Great news! I love Southland, I hate NBC now I can watch Southland and not have to give a seconds time to NBC.
Awesome news! I love this show.
Great news! I love Southland, and a cannot waitto see then.
i am having a really great fall season this year!!!!!!
thanks TNT for saving Southland
Great news. It will fit in perfectly on TNT.
The downside is that this probably means Dark Blue is toast. It’s the only show from the summer that wasn’t renewed yet.
How close does anyone think it is at?
Rasing the Bar hasnt been renewed yet either
For me I think it is a 50/50 shot.
I think it’s way better than 50-50 that the 13 episodes already produced will air on TNT. But when they air and whether TNT signs up for any NEW episodes is another story.
If it’s just the 13, there really is no story other than Southland is canceled!
How high do you think tough?
According to Nikki Finke: “People working on the show are being told to prepare for a projected November 2nd re-start date”
If she’s right that might mean more than just 6 new episodes.
I’d put the chances of the already produced episodes of Southland airing on TNT at 85%. I don’t have a good feel for producing new episodes but just for grins I will say 12%.
GOOD NEWS!
Oh Man, Thanks Robert
Michal, regardless of what happens, I will be very surprised if there’s a November 2nd start date for new production unless the six episodes already filmed for S2 require additional work to get on the air (which may be the case). But that strikes me as a small staff.
Unless TBS really wants to ride the “NBC bashing wave” (and even just picking up the already made eps allows them to do that) I would be very surprised if they made a decision on additional episodes without seeing how existing episodes do on TNT first. I suppose it’s possible they think it is can’t miss and want to lock up everyone involved, but that seems doubtful to me.
Robert, I took that to mean November 2nd is the day they (potentially) restart production. Am I reading that wrong?
Edit: Ok, I see that I’m reading that right, and you just don’t see that happening.
That’s fair enough. But as a fan of the show, I hope you’re wrong.
Julia, I am only giving my view which may well be wrong. It is certainly understandable why you or anyone else would read it that way. What isn’t so understandable to me is the motivation TNT would have to be in a hurry to restart production.
I read your comment as you don’t see it going on air November 2nd, but I missed something in there. It’s Friday. I need sleep.
You don’t need sleep, Julia: you need Dollhouse! Unless you’re one of those lucky ducks who lives in an Eastern timezone, who’ve already seen the episode!
Watch Dollhouse tonight, fellow West Coasters! It comes on less than 2 hours from now!
Dollhouse! Dollhouse! Dollhouse! Dollhouse rules! Southland drools! Dollhouse!
Actually, I think what I really need is Xanax. It’ll help with the sleep and the reason it’s lacking!
Julia, you never know, Dollhouse might be like Xanax for you…
Wow a couple of you are very huge hypocrites.
You’d spend time to watch a show so long as its not on a network that you don’t support, but if that network is known to go left you’d disavow it? (and yes NBC is known to be leaning right-just as fox is leaning left)
It wouldn’t be that difficult to get production started by Nov. 2, since they presumably have scripts ready to go, and I’m inclined to think that Finke didn’t just pull that little factoid out of her ass. As for why TNT would think new episodes were worthwhile, maybe they feel that six new episodes and seven repeats aren’t enough to measure the show’s audience in a satisfactory manner.
Andrew, I wasn’t suggesting that Nikki manufactured that nugget, only that perhaps the person passing it along to her has a more vested interest in being optimistic than TNT does.
Well, I’m happy for Southland fans, and I hope it does well so that cable might become a more viable option for good network shows that are canceled.
I hope Southland isn’t a replacement for Dark Blue! What do you think the chances are that TNT pairs Southland with Dark Blue?
Oh I forgot Dollhouse was on tonight. I missed the last episode and don’t plan to see it. This week is Sierra’s backstory though which I suppose could be good…though if it’s too good I’d be annoyed by the over-a-month wait for the next one. Only to be disappointed, a la the drop from Epitaph One to this season so far.
Ok, from TWOP forum reactions, people think this episode is on par with Epitaph One and I know they’ve been annoyed with the decline from EO too. Now I’m getting excited…
I would like Dark Blue to be picked up for another season, definitely the more entertaining show of the two that you want to watch every week. I don’t see Southland having some great success in cable. It was good, but really so depressing. Since it is a good show, there does have to be a reason that Southland lost so many viewers in the short time that aired and it wasn’t from the pilot to the 2nd episode. As someone who watched the first 3 but not the rest, I’ll tell you for myself, I wasn’t in the mood for anything quite that dark every week. Even though TNT has the more law and order type shows, they aren’t really all that gritty, and Southland is very gritty. I still think FX was the better fit.
And I don’t have anything against gritty. The Wire is one of the best shows ever created. But whereas Southland is good. The Wire was excellent, superb, phenomenal. There’s a real payoff for watching all that grittiness, I don’t see that in Southland personally.
Nov. 2 definitely seems a bit soon, I guess we’ll see. But I never trust Nikki’s info. I always wait for it to be reported somewhere else before I’m inclined to believe it.
Tory, well put! I’m really hoping TNT renews Dark Blue for a second season because I found it to be one of the only new shows of the summer that I actually enjoyed and looked forward to watching. The acting and production quality in Dark Blue are top notch and, in my opinion, superior to TNT’s other offerings.
Great a Turner network finally saved an NBC show.
I guess they were trying to make up for not saving My Name Is Earl. They tried that with TBS and that didn’t do good.
Wouldn’t it be funny if Southland aired in one of the 10 pm slots, as it likely would, and it ended up beating Jay Leno in viewer, household, demo and/or share numbers?
yeah where were they for Earl?!
but this is still good, if not great, i like this show and i missed the last 3 episodes of season 1 so this will be very nice and stuff
I bet anything beyond the episodes already filmed will be all that is seen. Too expensive to make more, but you never know. All I care about is that they keep making the terrific show that is “Leverage.” I just wish they made more than 12 episodes a year. It’s one of the best shows on all of TV & that is a fact. It’s clever, well written, & the cast is just about as well cast as you can get too. I know others feel the same way.
Awesome!
Well, if they do restart production in November, I would assume that TNT would only order 2 more episodes would re-launch Southland as a new 15 episode season 1. 15 episodes seems to be the maximum that TNT would order (The Closer, Raising the Bar and Leverage all have 15 episodes)
I don’t know how much Warner Bros would want from TNT for the 7 from season 1 and the 6 shot from season 2, but it seems to be that TNT’s investment in this would be pretty small.
Nikki Finke posted an update on her blog saying that NBC is holding things up right now.
If they cancelled it and dumped it like Friday’s trash, why would they give a crap if someone is willing to take it?
However, I would assume that NBC is looking for financial compensation for the 6 episodes they bought and paid for and won’t air.
Don J, I’d guess NBC would like all its money back to release the rights to the 13 existing episodes. My guess is that TNT is likely interested in paying less than that. A fairly typical business negotiation.
Of course Nikki Finke has to (perhaps by law) portray NBC as both evil *and* stupid, so any impasse is of course 100% their fault.
Bill, If the 7 from last year were done in a standard deal, those rights already had reverted back to WB, so they’d only need to worry about the new six.
The Wrap had a post up late Friday night saying that what happened on Friday was a clearing of the ways that would allow Southland to land elsewhere, with WB and NBC figuring out a divorce including resolving issues of “shutdown fees”.
http://www.thewrap.com/ind-column/warner-bros-nbc-conclude-southland-divorce-9115
good news, though i can’t see keeping the cast together that long to produce new episodes if it does well…
about dark blue and raising the bar…i am not really surprised about dark blue not being renewed yet, but am surprised that raising the bar hasn’t gotten a pick up…dude cut his hair…what more does the net want…
So TNT will run 13 episodes that were already produced and see if they can draw better ratings than Dark Blue or Raising the Bar. Executives will decide if they prefer anything that was in production when Southland was still at NBC. Then they may elect to order new episodes. The good news is TNT can hype something new between seasons of Saving Grace and Leverage.
I don’t think that TNT picking up Southland will automatically mean death to Dark Blue. Since the seasons are relatively short, I would suspect that there’s room for both shows in the schedule. Besides, TNT is still showing reruns of Dark Blue, so I don’t think that they have entirely given up on the series yet.
YAY!
I’m so glad CBS and TNT are saving NBC’s biggest mistakes.
Im not getting too excited about this pickup until I hear what kind of ratings it pulls in. And who really expects it to do that great on TNT? Aren’t they planning on starting the series from the beginning? How many people are gonna watch it seeing as how they are starting off with episodes that are basically reruns?
By the time the new episodes air the ratings will probably not be all that spectacular and people who watched the show when it originally ran on NBC probably won’t be aware that they are to the point where they are running the episodes intended for S2.
I would be completely excited if they started from scratch and committed to finishing off a full season 2 run of episodes.
Run the 7 episodes now.
Start the second season in the summer of 2010 when cable doesn’t have as much competition from network television. (6 eps in the can plus 7 more to give it a S2 of 13 eps).
Thank God! This is the best news of the day! Shame on NBC for getting rid of Southland. I honestly don’t see TNT airing the show until the summer, since they have such a huge summer following. If Southland could follow the new season of The Closer this summer, it could give it a huge boost.
But I would rather TNT air the 7 eps they have made now, and air the back half of the second season in the summer, which they do with most of their shows now anyways. If new show, Men of a Certain Age wasn’t starting on December 7 at 10pm after the return of The Closer’s fifth season, I would say air Southland there, but I have a feeling it won’t be on until June 2010 at the earliest.
Great show. F**k NBC.
This just made my weekend!
Fantastic News! I was looking forward to Southland returning only to here that it was Cancelled! Thank you TNT! It was NBC’s Loss!
If it did come back, and I was a fan of the show, I wouldn’t want it to come back till at least Decemeber. That way TNT can maybe air some repeats of the old episodes and air lots of ads to promote the show.
I hear that Southland is great. I am glad that TNT is picking it up and I Hope that they will put it with a 2nd season of Dark Blue..which I Love. Will the 2 shows be a good match? Maybe that’s why the news of another season of Dark Blue is so delayed.
The re-runs did have pretty good ratings ……………. (for no promotion.) 3-4 million if I remember correctly. People might tune into the first season just to stick it to “the man”. Stranger things have happened.
They could also go back and re edit for content. “Come see the show NBC would not let us air” ……………… Might create some hype.
Make no mistake, I love the show. I just hope they do this right.
-K
So NBC dumps another show and another network takes it…. I hope Southland does well on TNT just to stick it to NBC.
Im new to this kind of stuff so i didnt know other networks could buy a cancelled show?!
Can this happen for any show? For example, if Ugly Betty were to be cancelled or have its last season this year, could another network scoop it up?
Anna, it’s quite rare, but not unheard of.
hmm thats interesting! Didnt that happen to Scrubs or something? Im wondering if Ugly Betty could still be saved!! It is such a creative and fun show.
Can’t wait!!! I love this show. Was so bummed to hear it wasnt going to air again I watched it religiously and plan on doing it when it makes its comeback!!!
this is a great show!! i can’t believe nbc is so dumb! i am glad someone else has the good sense to see a quality product. nbc has so few good shows & losing this show is just a bad move on their part!
So glad to hear this news. “Southland” was our favorite show last year, even in summer repeats. Thanks TNT. Boo-hiss NBC.
Oh TNT, please save Southland. One of the best new drama/well thought out show I’ve seen in years!
NBC would’ve been fine if they just got rid of Jay Leno and free up 10pm slot.
Hey how about picking up Terminator: Sarah Conner Chronicles too?