Although rookie cop drama
Southland’s first season only ran for seven episodes, it left us with some major questions. We asked executive producer Christopher Chulack to clear things up.
Is Det. Russell Clarke (Tom Everett Scott) dead? The last we saw him, he had been shot and looked pretty corpse-like.I would say no, he’s not dead.
How badly is he hurt?I don’t think it’s too bad. That wasn’t the intent at the time we executed it. No pun intended.
Why Clarke of all the cops?There’s a certain irony to it. He’s getting back with his wife. It was on an off day, Memorial Day. Here’s a guy who survives working on the streets of Los Angeles, and he’s inviting somebody over to join in a barbecue and bang! Life is that way—where your life changes in an eyelash, sometimes for no apparent reason, through no fault of our own.
What exactly was happening in the house that caused him to get shot?All we know is that there was an arguing couple. Clarke went over to say, "Chill out, relax." And he gets shot. It wasn’t even as an officer on a domestic violence call. He was just a friendly neighbor.
Will all the major characters be back next season?I expect the series regulars will be back.
Give us some hints about next season.We have yet to sit down with the writers and figure things out. We’ll sit back and look at the first seven episodes and see what we like about it and what we didn’t and evolve from there.
Will Officer John Cooper come out of the closet?Maybe, maybe not. That face is just an insight into an individual’s life who happens to be a cop. Who knows if it will be germane to what he does as a cop? I kind of think no. But again, we have to see where we want to go next season.
While it got good reviews, Southland started out strong, then sank a bit in the ratings. What kind of changes could fix that?My personal opinion is that the fact that it sunk a little in the ratings had a lot to do with the programming around. The basketball playoffs were going. And there were so few episodes. What we could do is not have as many story lines in any particular episode. I don’t know if that will affect the ratings or not, but for me personally, I would like the episodes to be a little cleaner.
You’re moving from Thursday to Friday in the fall. What do you think of your new time?We’ll be on at 9 on Friday nights on NBC starting September 25. I think it’s good. I like the
Law & Order lead-in that we have. We’ll see how we do against
Dollhouse and
Ugly Betty, though I don’t think that
Betty’s audience is ours.
It doesn’t seem that Friday is the day to toss unloved series anymore, does it?No. Everyone initially said, “Aw gee, are you sad about that?” I looked at the schedule and how it shaped up and went, “Heck not a bad night.” I’m happy to be back.