While much has been made of TNT airing the already produced episodes of Southland, Eric Deggans of the St. Peterburg times asks the question that may wind up being the biggest news of the move to TNT: will TNT bleep the profanity?
Southland famously allowed its police to speak the way officers working a city tough as Los Angeles might talk in real life, bleeping the expletives. But TNT has a looser standard; early episodes for the Ray Romano dramedy Men of a Certain Age, features a fair amount of profanity unmasked, including a salty joke about a prostitute featuring a reference to the female anatomy which can also refer to a housecat.
A Twitter message from TNT’s publicity department today — sometimes the instant nature of social media is really cool — maintained the channel hasn’t decided what to do. “We’re still working on our plans,” the tweet read. “TNT does air shows with a TV MA rating, which covers certain language for mature audiences.”
The expletives in this show are appropriately realistic and are not gratuitious. TNT should lose the bleeps.
There are alot of bleeps in COPS. (but nobody runs it unbleeped)
I concur with CK: They’re not excessive whatsoever. Cops talk like that. Excessive (albeit, in an amazing way) would be from the film, “The Departed”. “Southland” should push the boundaries even further, I say. Perhaps some of the dissenters of the show the first time around will be more in love this time, since sizable audiences can be found for similar expletive-prone shows on FX and SHO, et al..
Michael Ausiello — Scoop: TNT may expand ‘Southland’ episodes:
http://ausiellofiles.ew.com/2009/11/02/scoop-tnt-may-expand-southland-episodes/
Michal, I had read that, but it didn’t make much sense to me.
Do they sell fewer ad spots? And how exactly do they produce the extra footage? Bring the whole production together to end up creating just a few extra minutes per episode? That just doesn’t seem likely. I can see them perhaps re-editing using already shot footage.
No question that the John Wells PR machine is pulling out all the stops to pummel NBC for this. To imaginarily paraphrase him “Not only are we moving the show to TNT, but we’re going to make it better than it was on NBC too!”
Legally the FCC does NOT have the authority to regulate and impose decency standards on cable (only OTA broadcast stations), so there is nothing legally stopping TNT from airing Southland unbleeped.
My impression was that they had some deleted scenes lying around for the extra time.
So I guess they filmed this with all the bad words knowing they’d just have to bleep it all for NBC? For some reason I thought they may not actually say the words when filming since they weren’t gonna be there anyway. Shows how much I know.
who cares?
spotupj, for the DVDs. Although, “Action” did the same thing in 1999.
Got it, J.R., thanks. Guess I was associating it with something like The Office/Arrested Development where the bleeps were part of the documentary conceit and part of the humor, so they couldn’t really be taken out.
@Edgar
You mentioned the most pertinent issue which applies to all the drama series on basic cable. FX, TNT, USA, etc… don’t have to comply with the same content restrictions as NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS, & CW. The FCC does not have “decency standards” authority over them. As a result, we have fine series such as “The Shield”, “Nip Tuck” & SOA. The broadcast networks can’t air those series. Their show have to be tame in comparison. That’s one of the reasons NBC gives us five hours a week of Leno.
Bill, I’m not sure about the ad spots but about the extra footage; It’s possible (and that’s just a speculation on my part) that they’ll use scenes that were edit out the first time the episodes were aired.
I read somewhere that the show had a lot of extra footage laying around especially from the pilot episode, that they ended up not using for lack of time; my guess is that they’ll use these.
FX lets its shows go past 60 minutes. TNT can actually sell more ads.
I know there are a lot of subtle rules that are different in what can be said on cable and broadcast, but I never understood why a show like Southland on NBC bleeped the swears and called attention to them, when a show like Breaking Bad on AMC simply cuts out the audio when the swear happens. I think its much less intrusive and much more effective if the idea is to not have people hear the swears.
The reason MUST be that they can show the mouth saying the swear on cable, so they must think if they’re hiding the mouth AND they’re just cutting the audio, it’ll cause more confusion for the audience than saving them knowing someone swore.
From Variety:
Turner won’t make many changes to the existing episodes — but Wright confirmed that TNT will indeed likely allow some expletives to remain unbleeped. Such a move would confirm conventional wisdom that “Southland’s” edgy nature was a better fit, anyway, for cable — where content standards aren’t as rigid.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118010730.html?categoryid=14&cs=1
TNT isn’t FX. FX has been willing to take it there in terms of content. I don’t know that TNT is willing to let their viewers listen to curse words even if it helps with authenticity. I could see them allowing them in a 11pm slot, but not sure about 10pm slot since none of their other shows have them to my knowledge and they may not want to start a trend.
Unless I missed something, that Ausiello “may produce more eps” was nothing more than an actor on the show, who has been vocal in its cancellation, saying he had a guy feeling it would do really well on TNT. That’s not exactly an indication I would spend much time thinking about. TNT hasn’t picked up new episodes and this little tidbit doesn’t change that (yet).
I wonder how many “out of spite” viewers Southland will get, such as myself?
@Bill, Maybe the extra time is because they don’t have as many local ads or affiliate promos?
For the most part, they could re-edit, but I could see them deciding they needed to film a couple of pick-ups to help things flow with the re-editing…. Or the real problem was the new episodes sucked so they’re trying to fix them.
Holly, you inspired some…investigative blogging
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/11/02/scoop-dont-look-for-tnt-to-expand-length-of-existing-southland-episodes/32380
Saving Grace has had cursing, pretty much everything but f and c. Not to mention nudity. And I remember that Gary Cole show they had a few years back had a lot of cursing, so I don’t see why Southland would be too much of a problem.
So tired of television acting like it’s airing inside a church. Leave the swearing in, no bleeps. Put your precious little children to bed if you think their ears will bleed. I guess I can still see bleeping on broadcast, but cable needs to just go nuts.
But come on TV shows can air quality and have a little bit of class. I say have a few minor cuss words and no bleeps insuating that is the word they are saying.
Hopefully, they just bleep the entire thing so viewers won’t have to hear any of the inane dialogue. (”He’s new. He’s new.?” Yeah, bleep that. Definitely bleep that.)
“Hopefully, they just bleep the entire thing so viewers won’t have to hear any of the inane dialogue”
THAT, my friend, was a great line! LOL