The Shield

By Steven Rubio I suppose I could just repeat myself: Hugh Laurie is to House as Tim Roth is to Lie to Me. Both are decent shows made especially watchable by the stars. There is reason to think Lie to Me will be even better this season … Shawn Ryan, creator of The Shield, has taken over as show runner. The big proble...

By Steven Rubio There are a lot of good shows on now. But the shows I think of as the classics ... The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, Buffy, Battlestar Galactica, The Shield ... they are gone. That leaves Mad Men, on hiatus. I like Dexter a lot, although I think it falls a bit short of the above-named shows. I like 30 Rock as...

By Steven Rubio Generation Kill. Something for the Wire guys to do with their newly-found spare time. Surprise, it was great. The Shield. The best show of the year not named The Wire or Battlestar Galactica. Actually, those last episodes were better even than BSG.

By Steven Rubio Sons of Anarchy might make it somewhere between The Riches and Damages. It ain't there yet ... if someone told me I could have The Riches back if I gave up Sons of Anarchy, the bikers would be gone in a second. I'm trying to think if there's a single character on Sons where I think "oh boy, this is gonna...

By Steven Rubio So much great acting throughout this series, but everyone was at the top of their game in the finale. Michael Chiklis has gotten the lion's share of the credit over the years, understandably so ... but  the supporting cast never faltered, and Walton Goggins and CCH Pounder in particular had wr...

By Steven Rubio But that's for another day. The show under examination in this post is supposedly True Blood. But I'm stuck for something interesting to say. It's a pretty good show ... back when HBO was king and Showtime was a niche channel, True Blood would have fit right in on Showtime, but now it's Showtime tha...

By Steven Rubio The Shield is about the inner city, and it's about police, and it's about the corrupt but fascinating cop at its center. It is a great show. But no one would suggest that it covers as much ground as, say, The Wire, which was about all of the above and much, much more. If The Shield tells the story of V...

By Steven Rubio This season of Battlestar Galactica is unrelenting in its misery. At one point tonight, I looked at Robin and said "I'm not sure there has been an entertaining moment all season long." The series is rounding the final turn, and all of the implications of the past are coming home. Everyone seem...

By Steven Rubio The Sopranos. Yes, I liked the ending. And let's give one last tip of the cap to Steve "F-Word" Hammond for his diligent bookkeeping over the years. Grade: A. The Shield. I've said all I have to say about this one. It's a terrific show, underrated because it's not on HBO. Grade: A-.