5310 replies to this topic

[isiscloud]

Squee! Timothy Olyphant gets his own show on FX!! He must have pulled in the viewers for Damages (at least the midling-young ladies) (even though I didn't watch season 2 of Damages myself) to get his own western.

Timothy Olyphant stars as U.S. Marshal Givens, a modern-day 19th-century-style lawman enforcing his brand of justice in a way that puts a target on his back with criminals and places him at odds with his bosses in the Marshal service.

Seems like he likes the role of a western lawman, nearly reprising his role from Deadwood. Would it be too much to ask for Ian McShane to be in it??? Please!!

I like that FX takes chances on shows.

(PS: searched Dramas, Sci/Action and the whole site and didn't find anything about this show)

Edited by isiscloud, Jul 29, 2009 @ 8:08 AM.

[Beacon]

A short clip of Lawman is available for viewing at this link:

Lawman Teaser

I like Olyphant and am looking forward to this show.

[Rollins316]

From that description, it makes me think "HUGE rip-off of The Shield" with shades of Olyphant retredding ground he already did with "Deadwood", minus Ian McShane working his ass off to keep the show interesting.

Seriously, this reaks of a huge rip-off of "The Shield", minus the moral ambiguity element that made The Shield such compelling drama. And Olyphant, despite his looks, has largely flopped when it comes to carrying a project on his own (see his movie career). They will either have to fill the supporting cast with people who can carry Olyphant's ass and draw in viewers or come up with some sort of "angle" (like say, making Olyphant's character be openly gay or secretly schizophrenic or obessive compulsive ala Monk or an actual time traveller who went from the 1800s to the year 2010) to draw in viewers.

Edited by Rollins316, Aug 15, 2009 @ 11:26 PM.

[Brandon]

Seriously, this reaks of a huge rip-off of "The Shield", minus the moral ambiguity element that made The Shield such compelling drama.

Other than the fact that both shows deal with tough guy law enforcement types I fail to see how Lawman's ripping off The Shield.

[Rollins316]

If it's not going to be like Shield, why are they hyping it in such generic terms ala the way Shield was promoted when it first came out?

Again, maybe there's a twist they aren't telling us there like The Shield had that takes the contrived "rogue cop who butts heads with his bosses over his tactics" formula and turns it on it's head and drives the series forward. Like Olyphant's character being openly gay or hiding serious mental illness from his fellow Marshals, or being a late 1800s bandit cast forward in time and having to pretend to be a solid citizen cop in 2010, ala Life on Mars.

But as it stands, the way they are promoting the show in said above press release, it's basically sounding like a dumbed down version of Shield minus the hook of Vic Mackey, evil magnificent bastard who shoots the good guy at the end of the first episode.

Edited by Rollins316, Aug 16, 2009 @ 10:54 PM.

[Redtracer]

Seriously, this reaks of a huge rip-off of "The Shield", minus the moral ambiguity element that made The Shield such compelling drama.

Considering that the main character of Lawman was created by Elmore Leonard for a series of novels that began in 1993, I think it's a bit unfair to characterize this as a Shield retread.

Edited by Redtracer, Aug 24, 2009 @ 12:16 PM.

[Rollins316]

Did not know that the show was a "Dexter" as far as being based on a novel series.

That said, care the spoil the book series so we know exactly what to expect from the series?

[cyberducks]

I saw the teaser last week and thought to myself that this looks promising, and it has the bonus that it's Elmore Leonard based and he has written some fun, interesting characters over the years.

[Redtracer]

That said, care the spoil the book series so we know exactly what to expect from the series?

It looks as though the series won't be following any of the plots of the books, as far as I can tell. They'll just be taking the Raylan Givens character and creating their own stories, like when they tried to make a TV show out of L.A. Confidential that just featured Jack Vincennes.

The big character hook is that he is an old-fashioned type of U.S. Marshal, with the cowboy hat and everything, and he's been transferred (demoted?) to his hometown in Kentucky.

I'm interested in seeing how the South is portrayed. I'm not from the South, but it's nice to see shows that aren't set in New York and Los Angeles. That said, I hope every single character won't be the racist hick that Hollywood seems to fall back on when portraying that particular region. I'm expecting FX to go past the stereotype.

[OoogleEyes]

All hail FX!!

U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens is a modern day 19th century-style lawman, enforcing his brand of justice in a way that puts a target on his back with criminals and places him at odds with his bosses in the Marshal service. That conflict results in a reassignment for Givens to the U.S. District covering the town where he grew up. He is an anachronism - a tough, soft spoken gentleman who finds his quarry fascinating, but never gives an inch. Dig under his placid skin and you'll find an angry man who grew up hard in rural Kentucky, with an outlaw father, who knows a lot more about who he doesn't want to be than who he really is.

Edited by OoogleEyes, Dec 2, 2009 @ 4:47 PM.

[AimingforYoko]

Preview from EW. Back when it was called Lawman.
The name that excites me as much as Tim Olyphant is Elmore Leonard. Much like Tarantino and Mamet, I love the way his characters speak.

[cyberducks]

There is already a thread for this show from back in August when it was still called Lawman.

http://forums.televi...;#entry12095175

[Strega]

(I've merged the threads togther under the new title, so: carry on. And thanks for catching that.)

[HoneyBee]

Seriously, this reaks of a huge rip-off of "The Shield", minus the moral ambiguity element that made The Shield such compelling drama.

If anything, it looks like a modern version of Deadwood.

I can't wait.

[sedeyus]

I'm willing to give any new FX show a shot but I thought the previews sucked. He's a cop who plays by his own rules, that gets sent back to his hometown in Kentucky where they're apparently running around with rocket launchers. His gimmick is that he wears a cowboy hat. I mean, what?

[hardy har]

I'm still totally going to watch this but Justified is a terrible fucking title. It sounds like the name of a boy-band or something. Did the have to change the title because Steven Sagal's lame show aired first?

[Rollins316]

On the other hand, the show has Walt Goggins in it (I assuming his AMC series didn't get picked up?), which might get me to watch a couple of episodes of it.

[Redtracer]

I'm still totally going to watch this but Justified is a terrible fucking title. It sounds like the name of a boy-band or something. Did the have to change the title because Steven Sagal's lame show aired first?

I assume. Ugh, screw you Steven Seagal.

According to The Futon Critic, the show is set to debut on Tuesday, March 16 at 10 p.m.

Apparently, previews are already being shown on FX, but here is the trailer for those who haven't seen it:

Justified

My brother was impressed that the main character is referred to as a deputy marshal. The vast majority of marshals (including my brother and almost all of the ones you see on TV and in movies) are technically deputies, but they're rarely classified as such in fiction.

I've just started watching Deadwood on DVD, and I'm now completely psyched for this show.

[Redtracer]

The official site is up at the FX site.

Alan Sepinwall from the New Jersey Star-Ledger and Tim Goodman from the San Francisco Chronicle both mentioned on their Twitter feeds that they loved the pilot. Details will probably be coming later, but it sounds promising!

[SJ82]

I'm looking forward to this, especially if they lift a lot of the Elmore Leonard dialogue from the books:

Deputy Marshal Givins to bad guy holding a shotgun in his face:

You reckon to load before I put a hole through ya'?

I can't wait.

Edited by SJ82, Mar 5, 2010 @ 2:20 AM.

[cyberducks]

I miss the old title (one more reason to really dislike Steven Seagal) but this is looking good.

[A Conspiracy]

All the ads seem to imply it is The Shield II, with Walton Goggins heavily shown. But on the official site he isn't even listed as a cast member, just a guest.

[Split Ends]

My husband has slowly turned away from dramatic television (he puts up with sitcoms) so I'm very excited that he is excited about this show. I was going to watch anyway, but it really does say something about Olyphant and the commercials that he is interested.

[cyberducks]

All the ads seem to imply it is The Shield II,

I think the protagonist here may be more straightforwardly heroic than the "hero" of The Shield.

[supposebly]

I always loved Olyphant, so I'm absolutely thrilled to have him on TV again.

I never pegged him for someone who goes with the simple straightforward roles. Most of what I've seen him in was either completely crazy (Luke in No Vacancy) or interesting in a not-quite-so-crazy way. Like his Sheriff Bullock on Deadwood or in High Life from last year. Bullock would look rather boring on paper or in a promo clip but the character was one of the most layered creations I've seen on TV. Good writing of course helps.

I've never seen The Shield, so if people are already comparing based on a few clips, I'm glad I've never seen it. So I can watch on its own merits.

[Rollins316]

The presence of Walt Goggins as part of the cast made me think that whoever is doing casting for the show probably remembered that "Deadwood" was successful largely on the basis of Ian McShane being cast as Olyphant's co-star, with the actor pretty much carrying the show for it's three short seasons. But him not being a series regular does fill me with dread, unless they plan on his character existing within the background of the series and not in every episode.

I think the protagonist here may be more straightforwardly heroic than the "hero" of The Shield.

Which means that they'll need to find something to hook viewers if they are simply giving us generic a generic anti-hero as a protagonist. FX has largely made it's back off of shows that explore and deconstruct the formula of the anti-hero, meaning that the writers are going to need to come up with some sort of angle to make the character interesting and not just be a neutered, non-threatening, safe for kids version of Vic Mackey for the show to have legs.

Like his Sheriff Bullock on Deadwood or in High Life from last year. Bullock would look rather boring on paper or in a promo clip but the character was one of the most layered creations I've seen on TV. Good writing of course helps.

He had Ian McShane to help him, not just good writing. Olyphant is one of those actors who is is only as good as whoever he's playing off of and having writers who understand his limitations and working around them. And in the case of Deadwood, the writers quickly realized that Swearengen was the more interesting character and wrote the character of Bullock to play off the character in that regard.

Which is why I think that the casting of Goggins is good for the series and why I am hoping they'll find a way to keep him around, since Goggins could make for an excellent foil for Olyphant IMHO.

[Redtracer]

Which means that they'll need to find something to hook viewers if they are simply giving us generic a generic anti-hero as a protagonist. FX has largely made it's back off of shows that explore and deconstruct the formula of the anti-hero, meaning that the writers are going to need to come up with some sort of angle to make the character interesting and not just be a neutered, non-threatening, safe for kids version of Vic Mackey for the show to have legs.

I actually thought this exchange from the trailer was meant to illustrate that there is more to this character than would meet the eye:

Raylan: I've never thought of myself as an angry man.
Woman (ex-wife or ex-girlfriend?): Honestly, you are the angriest man I have ever known.

Edited by Redtracer, Mar 8, 2010 @ 1:44 PM.

[cyberducks]

This show is racking up the good reviews all over - here is the Variety review.

It looks like Justified won't be as serialized as some other FX shows and there will be self-contained cases every episode.

[SJ82]

I hope more people are going to watch this than seem to be talking about it on the internet. I want this show to succeed. Here are some more good reviews:

List of reviews at Metacritic

Houston Chronicle

The only ones who don't seem to like it are the NY papers.

Edited by SJ82, Mar 15, 2010 @ 6:29 PM.

[cyberducks]

I hope more people are going to watch this than seem to be talking about it on the internet. I want this show to succeed. Here are some more good reviews:

Yeah, where is everybody? I hope this doesn't turn out to be one of those shows that only the critics like and mainstream audiences avoid like the plague.

What kind of audience figures will the series have to get to be considered a success on FX?