Snubbing The Shield

I don't want to admit that I watch a ton of television. Growing up, that was everything we railed against as the defining moment in life when you really had lost that lovin' feeling, the point in your life's career that you had decided there just wasn't that much more to life than staring at the pixelated screen in front of your coffee table. Gone were the days of getting drunk, smoking pot and playing guitar until dawn. Gone were the walks through the neighborhood with the dog. Trips to Europe, skydiving, whitewater rafting, snowboarding, reading, writing, living, loving, life...it was gone once the television watching became a pastime. However, I have become a watcher of television.

I must say that, looking back, we were misguided. Watching television was more of an active denouncement of our parents' habits than a fear of losing touch with life itself. Hell, thinking back on all the countless hours I spent stoned out of my mind, watching quality television would have been an improvement to trying to see moving spirals in my Alice in Wonderland poster while hopped up on LSD. A good episode of The Wire tops those memoires emensely.

This brings me to today's anouncemnet of the 2009 Emmy Awards. Television has come a long way from nights spent with mom and dad watching Dynasty and Dallas. Now we have shows like Weeds and Entourage to look forward to on weekday nights. It's Always Sunny in Philly has caused me to pee a little on numerous occasions, while Rescue Me always has me dreading the end of our 60 minutes together. True Blood, Nurse Jackie, Mad Men, The Office, 30 Rock, Breaking Bad, Big Love, Damages, Six Feet Under, Eastbound and Down, Generation Kill...the list of beautiful and gut-wrenching television goes on and on.

With all the amazing television out on a seemingly endless selection of channels, I would imagine it would be hard to narrow the field down when considering shows and actors that deserve Emmy nominations. That being said, today's list of nominees was glaringly missing a final curtain call for one of the most provacative, daring, and undeniably groundbreaking pieces of programming in television history.

Season 1 of FX's The Shield premiered on March 12, 2002 and immediately changed the landscape of what basic cable could bring viewers. Sure, HBO had been breaking the mold in regards to pushing the boundaries, and Six Feet Under had just wrapped its first full season, but it wasn't until The Shield brought its gritty brand of documentary-style handheld recording, language, and graphic depictions of inner-city crime and police corruption to FX that producers, writers, and networks began to reconceptualize creative content.

Furthermore, creator/writer Shawn Ryan, series star Michael Chiklis and co-star Walton Goggins (the two men whose character relations provided the arc for the entire series) got better with age - something very few programs (I'm talking to YOU Grey's Anatomy) can hope to achieve.

The Shield ended the series this past year with its 7th Season, a beautiful and heart-breaking collection of one-hour episodes that culminated with the murder/suicide of Shane Vendrell's family (Walton Goggins) and Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) forsaking everything around him to keep himself out of prision. The finale was executed perfectly, with Chiklis all but guaranteeing himself a Emmy nod with his overwhelming — and completely silent — performance as the realization that his character would forever be strapped to a desk, ostracized from the police force and his wife and children as a direct result of his decisions. It was easily the most mesmerizing ten minutes of television I had ever seen. The final season of The Shield was recognized by the American Film Institue as one of the 10 best TV programs of the year along with Breaking Bad, In Treatment, John Adams, Lost, Life, Mad Men, The Office, Recount and The Wire.

Of these television shows, The Shield is the most deserved of the recognition and priase, yet is one of the most overlooked programs in television history. Rent it. Buy it. Do whatever you can to wtiness the evolution of television, the birth of Michael Chiklis the bonified dramatic star, the rebirth of Glenn Close (who, unfortunately, time had forgotten), the remarkable acting chops of Anthony Anderson as the unflinchingly cold and calculated Antwon Mitchell, the hauningly intense work of Forrest Whitaker (the role grants him tremendous respect), and the dozens of other amazingly well-written and exceptionally acted characters who piece the 7 season story together. I, for one, was sad to see it go and even sadder that one of the best series in television history was but a small and passable blip on the Academy of Television Arts and Science's radar.