EXCLUSIVE: With Andre Braugher of 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine'

I don't remember now which of his many series he was representing. Could it have been so long ago that he was still playing the role for which he may be best known, as arrogant, eccentric, irresistible Detective Frank Pembleton on the classic cop drama Homicide: Life on the Street?

At any rate, I was still a relatively brand-new television critic, writing for The Detroit News, and certainly something of an anomaly: even today there are very few people of color writing about TV on a regular basis, and in the early '90s there were almost none.

Perhaps that was the key. I bumped into Andre Braugher in the elevator of the Santa Monica hotel where the Television Critics Association meetings were being held that summer and we began a casual conversation. It floated into the lobby bar where we talked about a variety of subjects – very few related to acting or television, as I recall – over a round or two of drinks. "What a great guy," I think to myself. I've never been starstruck, but neither had I ever spent significant time chatting with a nationally known actor in a non-interview setting. "He's nothing at all like his characters!"

As we get up to leave, Braugher takes a napkin off the bar and pulls out a pen. He writes down his home number and hands it to me. "If you're ever on the coast, give me a call," he smiles. Well, just how cool is this?

I'd like to tell you this is the start of a beautiful, decades-long friendship. But I would be telling you a lie, for I am a doofus. By the time I returned to Detroit from California a few weeks later, I lost the napkin.

I recount this story to Braugher recently over the phone (no, I didn't find the number; a Beverly Hills publicist set up the call), which elicits a laugh. "I'm glad to know I was perceived as being a nice guy," he says.

He's also being perceived now – for perhaps the first time in his long career – as a comedic actor. He has been nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series each of the two seasons Brooklyn Nine-Nine has been on the air for his portrayal of Captain Ray Holt, the by-the-book, openly gay commanding officer of TV's wackiest precinct.

As Capt. Ray Holt, the Last (Serious) Man Standing. (FOX/Tommy Garcia)

As Season Three arrives on FOX at 8:30 p.m. EST Sunday (Sept. 27, 2015), however, we find Capt. Holt has been transferred – and demoted – to head his former unit in the NYPD's Public Relations Office, the result of his ongoing insult war with the evil Deputy Chief Madeline Wuntch (guest star Kyra Sedgwick). Holt's farewell to his squad at the end of Season Two was the kind of scene from which YouTube legends are made. And now the 9-9 must deal with a new captain: guest star Bill Hader, former Saturday Night Live stablemate of series star Andy Samberg, as the efficiency-obsessed Capt. Seth Dozerman.

What are we to make of all this? For that matter, what does Braugher think of these big changes, I asked him as our one-on-one interview began.

When you received the script for the Season Two finale, were you at all concerned that you were being written out of the series?

I wasn't concerned in the least. I mean, there's always a cliffhanger at the end of a season. Jake (Andy Samberg) left the first year, Ray left last year, and next year who knows?

As a matter of fact, (co-executive producer) Dan Goor gave me a call after the script came out and said, 'Oh, in case you were wondering whether or not you're on the show, we have this whole elaborate thing planned out, blah, blah, blah,' I told him I had no doubts. Other people asked, 'Are you leaving the show? Where are you going?' I said, 'I'm sure they have something planned and they're going to resolve it.' I know these guys (Goor and Michael Schur) to be sharp and funny. They're not crashing their own show.

I think I have a contract that runs six years, and I think they're happy with my work. I've gotten two consecutive Emmy nominations. So I think I'm good.

Did you have any misgivings about playing a gay character?

I wasn't concerned about anything other than the fact that typically, gay characters are the butt of the joke. But I understood these guys (Goor and Schur) have a very good pedigree. I've watched The Office and Parks and Recreation and I know these guys are smart writers who create really rich and detailed universes for their characters. So my only question was, what's your intention with this?

Basically it was a five-minute conversation. Dan said his intentions were ultimately respectful. New York is a city that's incredibly diverse and this cast is incredibly diverse as well. It's his attempt to mirror the world, and I think that's wonderful. Raymond Holt is in a long-lasting, monogamous, stable relationship. He said this is not the kind of show where you're going to be wearing pink hot pants one day and dancing to 'YMCA' the next. No matter how crazy the characters are, they're still going to admirable in their own way. And I took him at his word.

It's an especially touchy issue for black actors, no?

You know, African American men in drag or as flamboyant homosexuals is really a very common theme in television, so it was always important for me to stay away from that kind of stuff. So I trusted these guys, and it's proven true. Ray Holt is a very interesting man whose sexual orientation is part of his character as opposed to being his defining trait.

Do you expect that Brooklyn Nine-Nine has impacted your image to the extent that casting directors will think of you now as a comedic actor?

(Laughs.) Possibly. I don't know. I mean, this was so unexpected. I would love to. I would love to take on some comic movies, I'd love to take on some comic challenges. I wasn't born to comedy, but I think there's a place for me. I would love to embrace it wholeheartedly and see where it goes, because I feel rejuvenated as an actor by being involved with this comedy. 

The undeniably diverse (and bizarre) cast of 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' (Scott Schafer/FOX)

Do you have any 'rearview mirror' thoughts about Men of a Certain Age (the short-lived TNT drama co-starring Ray Romano and Scott Bakula, which also earned Braugher two Emmy nominations). It was so good, and seemed to be canceled way too soon.

Well, I guess the numbers weren't good enough. People really had a very strong affection for that show, as did I. And I felt we were telling a really mature kind of comic tale about men in this time of their life.

You know, it's typically true of television that men at this age are the butt of the joke, and this was a show that loved them and understood them. You could see it in the writing. So I was sorry to see it go, but that's been the story of my entire career. It's not my decision. It's not my network. I would have done something different and I would have loved to go on with the show. Ray is a comic genius, period, and Scott is a perfect gentleman. But once again, it was TNT's call. If the numbers don't satisfy them, it's time to go.

They (TV networks) do love to pull the plug too early on the shows, you know? Shows don't get a chance to build. They just yank 'em. If farmers ripped up their crops as quickly as networks rip up television shows, nothing would ever grow. But I went on to Last Resort (the military drama that aired one season on ABC), and right after that I went on to Brooklyn Nine-Nine. So I consider myself fortunate as an actor to have been gainfully employed for five years in a row.

Does anyone still recognize you as Frank Pembleton, or has too much water flowed under the bridge since Homicide?

As Det. Frank Pembleton

Yeah, sure, from people my age (53). Because those are the people who saw the show when it ran on the network or saw it in DVD or boxed sets. But you know, the show doesn't stream, so there's a whole generation that knows nothing about that show. I mean, you can't find it on Hulu or iTunes, you can't buy it. You can see excerpts that people have posted on YouTube, but that's it.

It was a really interesting show, but no one can actually see it anymore. It's going to disappear, because you can't watch it. Test it out. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's the neanderthal in me coming out, but I don't consider myself a novice on a computer. And I don't see any way for an ordinary individual to watch an episode of Homicide. It's going to fade from consciousness.

TNT's 'Mob City:' Ultrastylish, Ultraviolent, Totally Riveting

Jon Bernthal is Det. Joe Teague in 'Mob City' (TNT/Doug Hyun)

Nazis and gangsters – why do we love them so?

Embodiments of complete evil: ruthless, psychopathic killing machines without conscience, obsessed only with acquiring more power, control and territory. Cocky, ultraviolent maniacs we can observe from a safe distance in the cozy surroundings of our living rooms and neighborhood theaters. And unlike video games or graphic novels, we all know this stuff really happened, which adds a underlying layer of fright and fascination to the proceedings.

There are at least a dozen cable series devoted to the vicious dealings of America's mobsters past and present – including one show on Bio called, simply, Mobsters. The Military Channel, for one, might as well be renamed "All Nazis, All the Time."

On Turner Classic Movies, the day before the premiere of TNT's lavish tribute to blood and bullets, Mob City, TCM host Robert Osborne presented a marathon of classic Warner Bros. gangster movies from the '30s and '40s – White Heat, Key Largo and The Roaring Twenties among them. He was accompanied by actor Ed Burns, who stars as Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel in the new three-week, six-hour miniseries.

To me, this was a really risky move. After screening hour upon hour of timeless, seminal performances by Cagney, Bogart, Edward G. Robinson and the like, it would be very easy for Mob City to pale badly by comparison.

Ed Burns as Ben 'Bugsy' Siegel (TNT/Doug Hyun)

Ah, but they knew what they were doing. Mob City, which begins with back-to-back, one-hour installments at 9 p.m. EST Wednesday (Dec. 4, 2013), is a bouquet to badmen. What should we call this, neo-noir? It's brightly colorful, gorgeously filmed, sensationally stylish (there's a prominent pair of period black-on-white striped saddle shoes I would be proud to wear today) and exceptionally violent, beginning with a hijack scene and a trio of tommy guns that seem to spew their rat-a-tat symphony of death far past the point of overkill.

This isn't to say Mob City is the equal or better of those immortal mob movies of the past. In a very distinct way, however, it has reinvigorated the genre in order to stand proudly on its own. Style and substance. TNT has invested an extraordinary amount of care and cash to promote this original production: It is the first series in history to have its screenplay adapted and published on Twitter (@MobCityTNT, a so-called "adaptweetion"), and the network sponsored a pop-up haberdashery in New York's Chelsea Market district to celebrate Mob City's remarkable array of fashionable men's fedoras.

Sometimes specials receive this type of big publicity buildup because the network knows it has a dog and is begging people to sit with it. In this case, I think TNT wants to make sure you don't miss it.

Mob City is the beautiful delivery of director-writer-executive producer Frank Darabont, the former showrunner for AMC's The Walking Dead who recently told Vulture that "sociopaths" forced him off the hit series in 2011 and he hasn't seen an episode since. Clearly, he found another diversion to occupy his time. This is Darabont's visual revenge, down to plucking his Walking Dead co-star Jon Bernthal to play his lead here as LA Police Det. Joe Teague, a cop with a face that looks like it's lost a fight or two and whose crimebusting techniques are, to say the least, unorthodox.

Everything here feels like it's been ratcheted up a notch or three for modern consumption. The all-too-familiar nightclub scene with the flirtatious, voluptuous bartender and the rugged cop, for example, becomes a long, suggestive dialogue steamy enough to melt the buttons on your remote. Based on the book L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City by John Buntin, Mob City dramatizes the real-life crusade by 1940s Los Angeles Police Chief William Parker (Neal McDonough) to rid his booming postwar city from the scourge of underworld kingpins like Siegel and Mickey Cohen (Jeremy Luke) while attempting to weed out the corrupt factions within his own department. (Burns, in his portrayal, manages to stand apart from the well-entrenched image of Warren Beatty as Bugsy and create a cleaner, more streamlined character.)

The pilot revolves around Hecky – not Shecky – Nash, played by Simon Pegg, a washed-up

comedian who alternately reminds you of a bleached-out David Caruso (if such a thing is possible), ESPN yakker Colin Cowherd and (for our slightly older readers) Frank Gorshin, or a mashup of all three. Hecky is a childhood friend of Cohen's, and recruits Teague, who has just been assigned to a new anti-mob task force, to serve as his bodyguard while he carries out a blackmail plot against one of Mickey's top associates.

As Hecky and Teague wait for the exchange to occur on a secluded expanse of oil fields outside the city, Nash, in a long and luscious monologue, sums up the miniseries and offers an explanation for our obsession with gangsters:

"This city," he sneers. "It's so damn beautiful. It's like a sky full of stars...but only from a distance. Up close, it's all gutter.

"The wise guys, they always get the best. Money falls out of the sky for these idiots. You know the kicker? Dumbest mugs you ever met."

Mob City is replete with lots of faces you'll recognize, even if you can't recall their names (including an older, dumbed-down Gordon Clapp (NYPD Blue) and Daniel Roebuck (The Fugitive), who has ballooned like a zeppelin), lotsa smoking, lotsa drinking, lotsa cursing and a whole lotta blood. You've been warned. Hey, it's a mob movie, right? And better than any of its ilk you've seen on the big screen in quite a while.

On a scale of 1-10: Mob City – 9 clicks.

Wahlberg's 'Boston' Still Finest; 'Marshal Law: Texas:' Not Arresting

Famous marshals in television history:

Marshal Matt Dillon, who transcended two generations as Wild West hero for 20 seasons of Gunsmoke;

E.G. Marshall, star of the ‘60s legal drama The Defenders;

Marshall Thompson, who took over the Marshall mantle in the mid-60s as valiant veterinarian Dr. Marsh Tracy in the family-friendly African adventure series Daktari; 

And Marshall McLuhan, the communications visionary who called out this crazy, outrageous medium more than 60 years ago for exactly what it has become.

All of these forerunners, sadly, are considerably more interesting than Marshal Law: Texas, the new Lone Star fugitive roundup series premiering at 10 p.m. EST Tuesday (Nov. 26, 2013) on TNT as a companion piece to Boston’s Finest, which returns for its second season preceding it at 9 p.m.

TNT is fashioning itself as something of a law-and-order reality TV hotbed these days with the recent successes of its Boston’s Finest and Cold Justice. But don’t get too cocky, you “We Know Drama” boasters: more does not automatically mean better.

Here we have a real-life Battle of the Network Stars: Marshal Law: Texas springs forth from the production company of megaproducer Jerry Bruckheimer, while entertainment multi-talent Donnie Wahlberg helms Boston’s Finest. You wouldn’t expect a New Kid on the Block to get the better of a Titan of Television, but you have every reason to expect more from the man who gave us all three CSIs, The Amazing Race and Without a Trace. That last title kind of sums up the presence of Bruckheimer magic in this series. It’s like he threw it together during a bathroom break. 

Marshal Law: Texas is set in Houston (we know this because of the same long, establishing aerial shots that begin every segment), focusing on the brave men and women of the Southern District of Texas, U.S. Marshals Service Gulf Coast Violent Offenders and Fugitive Task Force (whew!), an amalgamation of federal, city and county cops devoted to pulling the baddest of baddies out of their hiding places and into small cells.

The task force pursues several felons simultaneously, so the pace of the hour varies and it isn't exactly what you'd call boring. Yet the process seems exactly the same each time: A dozen or more officers hop into a fleet of SUVs like the Cavalry on wheels, race to a confirmed location, surround it, bust into it and drag out one guy. A dangerous, savage, sociopathic guy, perhaps, but still just one guy. Bullies. Watching this all-against-one scene repeated over and over, you almost start to feel sorry for the criminals.

That might also be because, through the descriptions of the lawbreakers and their crimes, you actually know more about them than you do about the good guys. We may learn more about the individual task force members in episodes to come, but Drama 101suggests you have to develop the characters in order to have empathy with them, and there is none of that in the debut.

In fact, the marshals are so anonymous that you may make the same foolish error I committed. The first time an identifying slate appeared onscreen, reading "DUSM PINON," I thought, "Dusm; what an odd first name." Then I realized they were letters standing for "Deputy U.S. Marshal."

The premiere doesn't generate real action until the last 10 minutes or so, when hunt for a murder suspect with diabetes prompts the task force to totally destroy a house (certainly not the suspect's) before reaching its inevitable conclusion. A warning here: it doesn't end well. 

Wahlberg's on home turf celebrating 'Boston's Finest.' (TNT/John Nowak)

Connecting with characters is no problem with Boston's Finest, and not only because the series already has been around for a season. Wahlberg and his peeps did an outstanding job of introducing us to the Boston Police officers being profiled from the show's very first hour, taking us into their homes and showing us their personal relationships, so our bond of interest and caring deepened. Maybe it's because this is a hometown labor of love for Wahlberg. As one cop says in the opening scroll, "Boston takes care of Boston." 

The second-season return is predictably poignant, centering around the city's giant Fourth of July celebration and the palpable tension throughout Boston in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing just three months before. (The bombing itself is recounted in quick flashback news reports.) Members of the Gang Unit and Fugitive Unit, usually plainclothed, are donning uniforms to bolster police presence during the holiday.

Patrol Officer Jennifer Penton, whom we grew to love and admire in Season One, is now riding alone, her longtime partner Pat Rogers having been reassigned. She talks about the heightened awareness she now must acknowledge as a female officer on her own, and when she and Rogers meet up during a street investigation, it's clear how much they miss each other's company. That's a pure interpersonal moment you'll find nowhere in Marshal Law: Texas.

We even feel a twinge of concern when Penton is sent to check out a large, suspicious black bag left on a neighborhood street, which turns out to be a false alarm. That's the big difference here: Boston's Finest takes routine police work and makes it seem interesting, while Marshal Law: Texas takes slam-bang fugitive takedowns and makes them seem mundane. Where's Tommy Lee Jones when you need him?

Betcha Bruckheimer could get him.

Marshal Law: Texas: 5 clicks (on a scale of 10); Boston's Finest: 8.

SOUTHLAND: If It's Gone, It Won't Soon Be Forgotten

It costs a heap of money to produce, with its sprawling cast and multiple locations each week. Its ratings have been consistent, as in consistently weak and disappointing. At least three series regulars – Regina King, Ben McKenzie and Shawn Hatosy – already have attached their names to new network pilots.

The handwriting isn't exactly spray-painted on a West Hollywood wall for Southland, TV's finest cop drama of its era, but the message is clear. This Wednesday at 10 p.m. EST, TNT is airing an NBA playoff game between the Lakers and Spurs. Whether Southland ever returns to claim that time slot for its sixth season is entirely up to the Turner division's braintrust. And for fans of the series – a small but hardy group – the catchphrase "We Know Drama" will take on special meaning until TNT makes its decision.

Frankly, it doesn't look good. TNT canceled Leverage last Christmas after five seasons, and its ratings were relatively spectacular. On the other hand, as Southland diehards know well, the show has survived certain death before: When NBC, its original network, canceled the series after two seasons, TNT deemed its overall quality worthy enough to rescue it from the primetime scrap heap.

Michael Cudlitz, Gerald McRaney. (Turner/Doug Hyun)

If this does prove to be end of watch for Southland, however, it has gone out with more bang than a drive-by shooting. The climactic scene three weeks ago between LAPD patrolman John Cooper (the phenomenal Michael Cudlitz) and his alcoholic, potentially suicidal mentor (played by Gerald McRaney) was so emotionally raw and visceral that I replayed it on my DVR at least three times. Honestly, I never knew McRaney was that fine an actor. Riveting work.

That scene, however, was nothing compared to the second-to-last episode, "Chaos," in which Cooper and his partner Lucero (Anthony Ruivivar) are ambushed by a pair of bloodthirsty meth tweakers, held hostage and stripped of their uniforms, weapons and dignity, bound in their underwear as their captors torment them. If you saw it, you're probably still thinking about it. Many viewers proclaimed "Chaos" the most wrenching and unforgettable hour of television they've seen in years. I'd be hard-pressed to disagree.

Cudlitz has been a revelation. As John Cooper, he's a bully, a hero, a street philosopher, a scoundrel – and oh, BTW, he's gay and languishing in the closet. His performances have been constantly challenging and utterly fascinating. How can this guy not win an Emmy? How much you want to bet that Cudlitz doesn't even get nominated?

Lucero and Cooper, in a Real Bind. (Turner/Doug Hyun)

But Cudlitz wasn't Southland's lone ranger. McKenzie's decorated Officer Ben Sherman, who ended the season's 10th and final episode, "Reckoning," in a vicious fistfight with his partner (Hatosy), continuously walked a tenuous tightrope between good and evil. And King's richly-layered Det. Lydia Adams ended this arc balancing motherhood and a mismatched partner while investigating the kidnappings of Cooper and Lucero.

Following in the heritage of great police dramas like Hill Street Blues, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Shield and The Wire, Southland reminded us graphically, sometimes brutally, that cops' lives are jacked up, too – maybe far more than ours because of what their jobs force them to endure every single day. As Cooper is told in the final scene of "Reckoning," "Just because you're a cop doesn't make you any less of an a--hole."

It's probably no spoiler by now to say "Reckoning" ends with Cooper on his back in an alley, bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds fired by fellow LAPD officers when he refused to lay down his gun, fighting for his life – or was he? Could this have been "suicide by cop?"

It made for a perfect ending. If Southland returns for a sixth season, we'll see Cooper recuperating in bed, painfully reassessing his life. (Personally, I cannot imagine the series continuing without him.) If it doesn't, this tortured soul went out in a hail of glory and put a shocking 10-7 on a breakneck five-year ride.

It's been an amazing season. Shaq was a guest star. And if it winds up being the last, lovers of great drama still should rise and give thanks to TNT for giving us more Southland than we had any logical reason to expect. 

DALLAS: Snidely Whiplash Has Nothing on Harris Ryland

Big, huge, Texas-sized doin's on Dallas this week.

In last Monday's episode, the state seized the land – and essentially, the business – of Ewing Energies as a result of the explosion that leveled the company's methane gas refinery.

Ken Richards (so cool to see Lee Majors again, in a guest role) pulls a Judas act on Sue Ellen and the family.

TESHA, the state's energy commission, ruled Christopher's negligence in not replacing a faulty sensor was to blame for the blast (when we all know it really was Cliff Barnes who paid for the platform to be dynamited, killing Christopher and Pamela's unborn babies in the process) and fines the family $1 billion for the catastrophe. (Note here: the Ewings' reaction, after Bobby tells the commission to stick their ruling where the oil don't flow, was not, "Oh, my Lord, where are we ever going to find that much money?" "It was more, "Oh, well, if we have to pay it, we guess we will." How much money do they have at Southfork, anyway? Must. Be. Nice.)

Even the governor of Texas (Steven Weber) appears to be in on the conspiracy to run the Ewings out of business and bring them to their haughty knees. And all the while, Harris Ryland (Mitch Pileggi) and Barnes are sitting back, rubbing their hands with glee and waiting for the dominoes to fall.

Oh, the soap's getting all sudsy now. It's all enough to merit a two-hour Dallas spectacular beginning at 8 p.m. EST Monday, April 8 on TNT, two new episodes back-to-back as the Ewing family unites to begin their counteroffensive.

Bobby wants to muss him up, but Ryland's got the upper hand – for now.*

With the death of J.R., this series needed a villain contemptible enough for the audience to boo and hiss whenever he appeared on the screen. Frankly, Cliff (Ken Kercheval) is a little long in the tooth for the assignment, but the producers appear to have found their man in Harris Ryland.

He pushes his mother (Judith Light) down a staircase. When he disapproves of his daughter's boyfriend, he has the kid snatched off the street, stuffed in a trunk and the snot beaten out of him. Boo! Hiss! Pileggi is certainly not the man he used to be in TV viewers' eyes, a mighty far piece from his days as Walter Skinner on The X-Files.

But I'm betting Pileggi knows what most actors recognize, and what Larry Hagman understood very well: villains usually get the best lines. And before we forget about it and move on, his closing speech as Harris at the end of last Monday's episode, "Let Me In" written by series creator David Jacobs, Cynthia Cidre and Aaron Allen, is a bit of business worth remembering.

Sitting in the governor's office, Ryland delivers a chilling, monotonal soliloquy comparing his strategy to that of a notorious killer of the animal kingdom. While he talks, the screen flashes with scenes of the Ewings' business and family slowly unraveling.

Ryland says: 

"I watched this program the other day. Some nature documentary on the hunting pattern of the Komodo dragon. Did you watch this?

"Well, see, the Komodo is venomous. His bite is poison. So he bites his prey – buffalo, usually – and then he waits.

"The Komodo is strong. But the buffalo is stronger. He can't take it down while it's at full strength. So the dragon waits, while the buffalo gets weaker and weaker. Takes days. Weeks, sometimes.

"Now the dragon keeps his distance but never loses sight of his prey. He's patient, and he has no mercy. That's his biggest strength.

"The dragon watches the poison takes hold, waiting for the buffalo to fall. For a moment to pounce. The buffalo panics, tries to escape, tries to fight the venom. But it's no use. The venom is absolute.

"There's no escapin' it, no fighting it, no endgame where the buffalo wins and the dragon loses. But the dragon's patience is well rewarded. The buffalo collapses, succumbs to the venom.

"And that's when the dragon feeds."

Hey, did he just call the Ewings a bunch of buffaloes?

Never herd anything like that.


*Photo courtesy TNT/Jade Rosenthal

On 'Dallas,' J.R. Goes Out With a Bang – For Real This Time

This time, sadly, J.R.'s not coming back. (Credit: Skip Bolen/TNT)

Whether you follow the new incarnation of Dallas like a Texan follows his Longhorns or you decided to keep your TV past in the past, if you loved the series in the '70s and '80s you owe it to yourself to tune in to the episode titled "J.R.'s Masterpiece" at 9 p.m. EST Monday, March 11 on TNT.

It's "Who Shot J.R.?" 2.0, as last week's hour ended with J.R. Ewing's son, John Ross (Josh Henderson) on the phone with his felonious father when he hears two gunshots on the other end of the line.

"Dad? DAD?" he screams.

I was so hoping he might get stabbed or poisoned this time around. Let the murder mystery begin!

Of course, unlike the media phenomenon that swept the world over three decades ago, J.R. won't be returning to lead the investigation this time, since Larry Hagman died of cancer last November at 81. So Monday's episode, J.R.'s memorial service at Dallas's exclusive Petroleum Club, is both a celebration of TV's most famous and enduring villain and the remarkable actor who portrayed him.

Might as well practice saying it now: "Boy, doesn't he (or she) look old?" Because J.R.'s funeral reunites a score of characters from the show's first go-round, and seeing them on the same set again is one of the special delights of the hour.

In addition to series regulars Patrick Duffy (Bobby) and Linda Gray (Sue Ellen), Ken Kercheval (Cliff Barnes), who makes recurring appearances, and Ted Shackelford, whose character Gary Ewing returned to Dallas a few weeks ago, will be there. (Knots Landing alert: Joan Van Ark, the longsuffering Valene Ewing who's now estranged from Gary, will return in a few weeks.)

Jones, Cuban and Mayor Rawlings with Duffy (Skip Bolen)

The guests include Ray Krebbs (Steve Kanaly), Lucy Ewing (Charlene Tilton), Mandy Winger (Deborah Shelton) and J.R.'s second wife, Cally (Cathy Podewell). Victoria Principal, Priscilla Presley and Susan Howard were invited, but declined; however, as a testament to the larger-than-life persona of both Hagman and his character, real-life Dallas moguls Jerry Jones, owner of the Cowboys, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings appear as themselves at the memorial.

I spent an evening with Hagman many years ago with a group of television critics at his Malibu beach house. It's a night I remember vividly to this day. He was gracious, friendly – and showed flashes of a wild-ass, bad-boy streak he couldn't mask if he tried. I left his presence thinking everything I'd heard and read about him actually might be true. Larry Hagman – native Texan, liver transplant recipient, marijuana advocate – was a marvelous TV actor (don't forget Maj. Tony Nelson in I Dream of Jeannie), and truly one of a kind as a human being.

If you'd like to catch up on the events leading up to this historic episode, TNT is making the first seven hours of the current Season 2 available for online viewing at http://tntdrama.com. And the official Dallas fan site, http://www.ultimatedallas.com/, is an overwhelming wealth of information on the series.

In the tipping point of "J.R.'s Masterpiece," Barnes crashes the private ceremony and runs his big mouth, sparking a brawl that disrupts the proceedings. Kercheval, however, escapes without a scratch. "Back in the day, Cliff Barnes would have been the first person hit," Duffy told TV Guide. "But we can't lay a finger on each other anymore because we'd fall down and break a hip."

Wahlberg's 'Boston's Finest' for TNT is, Well, Finest

Donnie Wahlberg, star of the hit scripted police series Blue Bloods, was on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart the other night explaining how his years of experience playing cops and robbers gave him unique insight to be executive producer of TNT's new reality police series, Boston's Finest, premiering at 9 p.m. EST Wednesday, February 27.

"I've played probably 800 cops in my acting career," he told a transfixed Stewart. "I've had like 801 jobs, and 800 of them were cops."

Yeah, right. And just because Anne Hathaway can look sickly and hit a high note, she should win an Oscar for Les Miserables. (Oh, wait. That did happen.) What's more, Wahlberg maintained, his respect for the men and women who serve and protect the hometown he loves so much defined exactly the type of show he needed to make.

"We can't do it on one of these rowdy networks with billy clubs smashing over people's heads," he said. "It's Boston. I have to represent my city the right way."

Oh, how I wanted to dislike this series so wicked hard. One, it's yet another reality series, and someday soon we will be force-fed one too many of them and all our brains will implode. Between those Dish commercials for "The Hopper," the foulmouthed wacky impressions by SVP & Russillo on ESPN and every other cop movie made these days, Boston and its accent have become the chic media premise of the moment. And, quite honestly, it'd be a nice change to see Wahlberg fail at something: he's had the right stuff seemingly ever since he emerged from puberty, attaining extraordinary success at almost everything except finding a really good tailor.

Wanted to. Couldn't. Boston's Finest is what reality TV was supposed to be all along. Insightful. Absorbing. Quietly fascinating. Even a little educational, without smashing us over the head with a billy club. From the network that gives us the best scripted police saga on television, Southland, this is what we should have every reason to expect: Reality done the TNT way. Cops with a Harvard education.

The Wicked Finest. Photo courtesy: TNT

The show is beautifully shot and paced, almost cinematic in its feel, a succession of Beantown glamour shots. And the measured, mellow narration occasionally sounds like the public reading of a new novel. "These cops think the darkest corners of their city are worth saving, and that they were the ones born to do it." Isn't that melodic?

However, as Wahlberg and his fellow producers were getting the mayor, police commissioner and chief of police to sign off on the concept, he told Stewart, "they all said the same thing: It's up to the officers. If they don't feel safe with you in the car, you're getting out of the car, you take your camera and you go home."

Obviously, it was safety first. I looked hard for any sign of uneasiness, insincerity or acting on the part of the officers. Nada. To their credit, these cops accepted the cameras without playing to them. And, in a distinctive difference from most police-focused reality shows, Boston's Finest will, in time, touch upon every segment of the Boston Police Department – street patrol officers, the detective squad, special task forces, the SWAT team, the Fugitive Unit and the city's highly decorated, danger-filled Gang Unit. Layered alongside that, the show impresses in the way it integrates the personal storylines of its principal players with their main focus of snatching bad guys off the street.

For example, in the opening episode I think you will very quickly grow to like Jennifer Penton. A small, compact steel coil of a woman, Penton served her country in Afghanistan before joining the force and now patrols the Hyde Park district with her partner and "best friend," Pat Rogers. They're close enough to correct each other's English on camera without triggering dirty looks.

"This is probably one of the badder areas we're going into," Rogers announces.

"Worst," counters Penton. "I don't think 'badder' is a word."

"What if I say, 'I'm the baddest?'"

"You can be the baddest," says Penton. "But not badder."

By the time the hour is over you will meet her mother, her nephew and her twin sister Melissa, whose lousy life decisions and descent into drug abuse have left her unrecognizable as Penton's sibling. Melissa's existence drives her passion to take drugs off the streets and eventually get into the narcotics unit.

You also see Penton sweating hard in the boxing ring, training to overcome any assumptions criminals – or peers – may make based on her gender and stature. "I'm 5-foot-3, a hundred-and-something pounds," she explains. "With that comes a fear that I'm going to be faced with a 6-foot-2, 250-pound muscular guy who doesn't want to go to jail that day. I have to stay on top of my game. It could save my life. It could save my partner's life."

By the second episode, she's inviting Rogers to her apartment for an after-shift dinner. Ooh, is something more than a patrol partnership developing here? Well, that's why it's a series, silly. Tune in next week.

You'll become acquainted with the Gang Unit, spending a rare night off to meet at a member's house for dinner and care for their combined passel of kids so their wives and girlfriends can enjoy a "Ladies' Night Out." And the wily, devoted Fugitive Unit officer Greg Dankers, husband to a fellow Boston cop and father to twin 4-year-old boys, who sets a trap to catch a violent drug dealer nicknamed (I love this), "DropRock." You'll meet a dozen more before the season's said and done.

Every episode shrewdly ends with a surge of action, a little adrenalin rush to make you consider coming back again for more satisfying visual chowdah. The show's theme song, performed by the Irish punk-rock band Dropkick Murphys, ends with the line, "the roof is on fire and it's ready to blow." That may be an apt description of Boston's Finest as well. It's wicked good.

On a scale of 1-10 remotes, I give Boston's Finest an 8.