the shield

Just like the rest of the universe, we've been thinking about the best TV of the decade. But instead of putting out a top ten list, we decided to let each Squadder comment on the show or shows he/she thinks was the best of that category.

We're splitting this out in a number of different categories; you'll see the posts through Sunday. Today, we start off with a biggie: Dramas. -- Joel

It's weird that an entire decade has gone by already, isn't it? I don't even think we've decided on what to call the 00s exactly. And isn't it amazing how many good shows can be jam-packed into 10 years? Sometimes people moan about the state of television, but there were some fantastic TV shows in the 2000s, including dramas.

Here are our picks for the dramas that stood out since 2000.

The "Ask TV Squad" column, published every Wednesday, answers your questions about current and past TV shows, as well as about the celebrities appearing on TV. Every week, I will pick a question (or more) sent to us and provide answers in the column. If your question is not picked for a column, it may be answered in a subsequent column or in TV Squad's APB Podcast.

To submit questions to the "Ask TV Squad" column, you can post them below in comments or email them to asktvsquad@gmail.com.

This week, I follow up on the last "Ask TV Squad" about TV shows on DVD and answer a question about which TV DVDs you should own.

Despite the fact that FX's late drama The Shield has only been off the air for a little over a year, it looks like the gritty cop drama's cast just can't get enough of each other -- a handful of them will be staging a mini-Shield reunion on Lie to Me this coming spring.

According to the press release from Fox, former Shield cast members Catherine Dent (Danny), Kenny Johnson (Lem), David Marciano (Billings), Benito Martinez (Aceveda), Cathy Cahlin Ryan (Corinne), and David Rees Snell (Ronnie) will all be featured in the episode, entitled "Pied Piper."

It looks like 'Fringe' isn't the only Fox series dealing with an alternate reality this season.

According to Variety, the network's detective drama 'Lie to Me' will feature almost the entire cast of 'The Shield' in an upcoming episode. While 'Shield' lead Michael Chiklis is not involved, no fewer than seven other regulars from the critically acclaimed FX series, which ended last November after seven seasons, will guest star in the episode.

(S02E12) "Either you or me goes home in a bag." - Jax to A.J.

The showdown we've been waiting all season to see finally happened tonight and even though it didn't end the way the antagonists deserved (i.e. heads removed where the shoulder meets the neck, placed on a stick and paraded around town on a substandard Japanese import), it still had my head spinning.

The show opens with SAMCRO preparing for their big, inevitable smackdown with the League by keeping all of their loved ones under lock and key at the clubhouse. But instead of just jumping into the fray head first with baseball bats twisted in barb-wire and all, they do what they should have done from the beginning: they plotted and planned. They turned the tables on the League and by doing so, turned the League on each other.

You've got questions? I've got answers. I'm The Show Girl!

This week, I introduce you to a new show I love -- then spend a good chunk of time convincing you to love it too. Now I know we've got a while before 'Life UneXpected' premieres (Mon., Jan. 18, 9PM ET on The CW), but you can never be too careful! Plus, I've filed it under "New Things I'm Thankful For," so see? There's a fitting theme.

I also get the scoop on the big two-hour 'Storm Chasers' finale (Sun., Nov. 29, 9PM ET on Discovery) from the show's twister guru and IMAX filmmaker Sean Casey. And you won't want to miss my suggestions for TV-themed holiday presents. Awesomeness all around.

Want more? Email me TV questions at TheTVShowGirl@aol.com -- who knows, I might just give you an answer on the show. Now watch, enjoy and come back next week for more. Until then, happy TV watching! -- By Maggie Furlong

When I first heard the plot of the new TNT drama pilot that George Clooney is producing, Delta Blues, I thought it might be funny at first but way too odd to watch for several episodes. It's about George Hendricks, a Memphis police officer who lives with his mom and is also a part-time Elvis Presley impersonator (I'm going to assume that he doesn't dress up as Elvis while he's on duty or this show will go be way into the red zone of the QUIRKY meter).

Well, at least they grabbed someone good for the role. My Name Is Earl's Jason Lee is going to play the lead character, and I can definitely picture that. Now I just wonder if he's going to dress up as younger, thinner Elvis (circa 1959) or older, wider Elvis (circa 1975).

The pilot will be directed by Clark Johnson, who worked on The Shield.

FX is going back in time -- way back -- to the post-Civil War era.

The Hollywood Reporter confirms that the cable network is developing 'Reconstruction,' a period-drama set in Missouri after the Civil War. Industry veteran Joshua Brand ('St. Elsewhere'; 'Northern Exposure') will write the project, with Emmy nominee Peter Horton ('thirtysomething'; 'Grey's Anatomy') on tap to direct.

Leading the show will be Jason, a character who "seeks refuge" in Missouri after serving in the Civil War. No word yet on who will play the role.

It is being reported that the idea sparked from conversations between Brand and Horton about the current economic and political climates. The allegory of the Western, they decided, was the perfect backdrop to tell that story.

Ah, 'The Shield.' Few other shows -- maybe 'The Wire' or 'The Sopranos' -- can make a TV fan as wistful as a mere mention of FX's 2002-08 cop drama, the show that solidified FX as a cable network that could hang with the likes of HBO, turned Michael Chiklis from 'The Commish' into one of the toughest and, yes, sexiest men in primetime, and ended its seven-season run with one of the most satisfying series finales in TV history.

The show, created by one-time 'Nash Bridges' writer and 'Angel' producer Shawn Ryan, has just been released on DVD with 'The Shield: Complete Series' (Sony Home Entertainment), a lavish book-type package that features all seven seasons on 28 discs, with cast and crew commentary on each episode, a new featurette on the real-life Los Angeles police scandal that inspired the series and a new behind-the-scenes featurette/set tour of the show's police offices, "The Barn."

Ryan, whose real-life wife Cathy Cahlin Ryan played Corrine, the wife of Chiklis' Vic Mackey, on the show, is now busily helming the Fox drama 'Lie to Me' and the upcoming FX comedy 'Terriers,' but took time out to talk to AOL about 'The Shield,' an unexpected fan encounter and how he's lost some serious space on his DVD shelf this year.

Here are the new TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.

If you loved The Rockford Files and you own the season sets, you'll probably want to buy Volume 1 of the movies (four in this batch) that is being released tomorrow. They weren't as good as the series, of course (sort of like the Spenser: For Hire movies that Robert Urich did after that series ended), but they're actually pretty good.

And season 6 of Kate & Allie is out. That reminds me: I still have to get season 5.

• Afro Samurai - Complete Murder Sessions
• The Clone Wars - Season 1
• Doctor Who - The War Games and The Black Guardian Trilogy
• Edge of Darkness - The Complete BBC Series
  

I haven't been here from the beginning, so I don't know the exact number of times actress and singer Katey Sagal has sat down to talk to someone from our humble site. But within the last year, someone Squadder has either called her up on the phone or bumped into her in person to chat her up about the return of Futurama or her more serious but equally kick-ass role on Sons of Anarchy.

I'm seriously thinking that we need to institute some kind of frequent visitor punch card that rewards stars with a free pizza, a round of drinks or half off a new muffler (not including labor) for their 10th interview.

Sagal was nice enough to talk to us yet again in anticipation of the new season of Sons of Anarachy that premieres this tonight at 10 p.m. Eastern/9 p.m. Central on FX. We talked about her character Gemma's place in SAMCRO and what she has to endure for the club, and why women are such big fans of the show.

FX held panels for Archer and Sons of Anarchy on Friday morning, but by then press tour fatigue had set in, and the energy in the room was low for both. It was especially low for Archer, a Adult Swim-esque spy cartoon by the creator of Sealab 2021 that most of the critics hadn't yet seen. The panel seemed to be more content with answering with wise-ass remarks that made themselves laugh but the just served to make us tired masses annoyed.

Things perked up, though, when the network presented five of its show-runners to talk about what it's like to develop edgy dramas for basic cable. But since the theme of the week has invariably been "Leno at 10," the questions often came back to the fact that NBC with one fell swoop wiped out five hours of scripted drama per week. And the show-runners took every opportunity to bash the Peacock for it.

And it got ugly: "I feel they should take the American flag down in front of the building and just put up a white one," said Rescue Me's Peter Tolan, "because they've clearly given up."

I'm still not sold on that show title; Terriers makes me think of little dogs yipping and running around. But FX and Shawn Ryan created magic with The Shield, and Ted Griffin made Ocean's Eleven so much fun. So I'm really excited about the show. My excitement can even withstand the news that Donal Logue (Life) has been cast in the lead role of Terriers.

I've never connected with Logue. I thought Grounded for Life was mostly crap, and he wasn't as "amazing" as the critics told me he was going to be in Knights of Prosperity. He has done better in some of his dramatic work. Maybe I'm just bitter that the hype machine told me Knights was going to be the greatest sitcom of the last millennium, and the next.

Television is a vast alien landscape of shows, programs and other watchables. So the odds of a really good show not getting special recognition are about as good as Michael Chiklis' chances of his noggin being mistaken for a shiny, beige Brunswick in a bowling alley.

The Emmys also tend to favor younger shows rather than the oldies that have had their chance to win some awards because the best stuff on television is always fresher out of the gate. It's just the beast of the cycle. Great movies age like a fine cheese. Great TV shows age like spray cheese.

The Shield, however, got totally snubbed from this year's nomination list. And is that something the Academy really wants to do to a guy with a hair trigger anger who considers a Smith and Wesson as his "backup piece"? (I should ask myself the same thing after that bowling ball noggin joke.)