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THANKS TO SINGULAR VISIONS, SUBVERTED GENRES, INTRICATE PLOTS AND DEEPLY FLAWED CHARACTERS, THE ONLY THING “BASIC” ABOUT FX THESE DAYS IS ITS CARRIAGE STATUS. By Graham Flashner photographsVE By STE SCHOFIELD 32 EMMY JOHN LANDGRAF CEO, FX NETWORKS AND FX PRODUCTIONS 33 Premiered: March 12, 2002 Created By: Shawn Ryan Stars: Michael Chiklis, Walton Goggins, CCH Pounder, Benito Martinez, Jay Karnes, Kenneth Johnson, Catherine Dent, Michael Jace, Cathy Cahlin Ryan, David Rees Snell, Glenn Close, Forest Whitaker IT’S ABOUT: !e Strike Team, an anti- drug unit operating inside the LAPD but outside the rules. ow many networks INSIDE DISH: Shawn Ryan wrote the pi- could legitimately use “Fearless” as a branding FX Networks and FX Productions — the viewers lot while under contract to the WB show statement? !e word implies a willingness to who seek them out are willing to leave their com- Angel. “In my mind, there was zero take great risks, to challenge and provoke view- fort zones. !at goes to the heart of the “Fear- audience for this,” he says. “I hoped it ers. In an industry where playing it safe is the less” mandate. would be a good enough writing sample norm, it’s almost impossible to deliver on that “Our aspirations are not to be safe or con- so that, if I got fired off Angel, I could kind of promise. ventional or predictable,” Landgraf says. “People get another job.” Once the pilot sold, But the FX network — where charlatans, who watch this channel want to be surprised. !e Angel creator-executive producer David pimps, bikers and spies have all run free — has alternative to being put off is never being sur- Greenwald graciously let Ryan out of his never played it safe. Twenty-one years after its prised.” contract. “If he hadn’t, !e Shield never humble beginnings in a Manhattan apartment, FX Landgraf has been guiding creative at FX would’ve been made,” Ryan says. is a Hollywood powerhouse, home to some of the since 2004. He’d previously co-founded Jersey most daring and innovative shows on television. Television, following half a decade as vice-pres- PRASHANT GUPTA/FX PRASHANT IMPACT: !e show transformed FX from “!ey take risks, and with risk comes great ident of primetime series at NBC. At FX, series an anonymous niche cable channel into reward,” says executive producer Ryan Murphy development has increased five-fold under his a bona-fide HBO challenger. Spotlight- (Nip/Tuck, American Horror Story). “!ey swing watch. Determined to avoid the network-style ing the most charismatic, seriously for the fences — sometimes they win, some- micro-management that he believes dilutes the flawed TV protagonist since a certain times they lose. But when they land, it really re- creative process, he’s drawn raves for his writer- New Jersey mob boss, !e Shield was verberates.” friendly, hands-off approach. !e Sopranos of cop shows. Popular with critics and viewers, FX shows “Mostly, writers need to feel supported and have nabbed twenty-seven Emmys and another protected,” Landgraf says, likening the role of his ICONIC MOMENT: Detective Vic Mackey 163 nominations. Last year, in its first season, creative team to that of a coach. “Unless they can shoots his partner dead in the last Fargo — a limited series inspired by the Coen hear that I understand what they’re trying to do, scene of the pilot. When he first read brothers’ 1996 film — earned eighteen Emmy why the hell should they listen to me?” the scene, Michael Chiklis threw the noms and took the award for outstanding “!ey’re always trying to find something script across the room. “It jolted me,” miniseries. Meanwhile, an average of 1.46 million that’s a little bit new, and it always comes back he recalls. “I yelled to my wife, ‘I have to viewers tune in to FX nightly — and the darker to character,” says Justified creator–executive do this!’” Says Ryan: “Had I known the the show, the more they like it. !e network’s producer Graham Yost. He’s also an executive series was going to go as long as it did, most popular series, Sons of Anarchy, was an producer on !e Americans, of which he says: I might’ve [held off on that plot point] operatically violent take on a motorcycle gang. “It’s a spy show, but in typical FX fashion, it’s a till the middle of season one.... We took !e depravity-soaked fourth-season premiere show about married KGB operatives. !ey’re that moment very seriously of the American Horror Story anthology, Freak the bad guys, and yet they’re the center of the over the next seven sea- Show, delivered the highest ratings in FX’s history. show. [Landgraf] kept asking questions about sons — it’s the original “!ey were the first basic cabler to appro- the marriage. He had an idea that one of them is sin that comes back priate what made HBO such a game-changer,” more into the marriage than the other. It gave Joe to haunt Vic and says Mary McNamara, television critic for the Los [Weisberg, the show’s creator and an executive his team over the Angeles Times. “!ey do risky, hard, R-rated, producer] a place to go for the next season.” years.”— G.F. out-there shows. Even the comedies are out If there’s a formula for FX shows, it’s this: in- there — very graphic, very adult. You don’t bring tricate plots, flawed characters, genres turned on the kids to FX.” their heads and authentic worlds where the dark- !e channel’s shows are not for the faint of est depths of human nature are revealed. !ese heart, but — according to John Landgraf, CEO of shows reflect the singular visions of creators 34Michael EMMY Chiklis given free rein to succeed — or fail — on their own Ryan, who’d been engrossed by the corruption terms. And that, more than anything, may be the scandal at the LAPD’s Rampart division in the late key to the network’s success. 1990s and was looking to reinvigorate a genre he “!eir best shows are the result of a writer felt had gone stagnant. saying, ‘Here’s a story I have to tell, but I doubt “I had spent three years as a writer on [CBS’s] anyone will let me tell it,’” says Shawn Ryan, cre- Nash Bridges, which was a very old-fashioned ator–executive producer of !e Shield. “Lo and ‘hero cop’ story,” Ryan says. “!e lead had to be behold, here comes FX to let you tell it.” impeccable in every way professionally, he had to “!ey bet on the people they believe in,” get the bad guy at the end of every episode, he says Rob McElhenney, the creator, an executive did everything by the book. I was trying to write Premiered: July 22, 2003 producer and a star of It’s Always Sunny in Phila- one script that would be the antidote to all that.” Created By: Ryan Murphy delphia. “!ey’ve cultivated an environment that Of the two shows, Dope had the inside track. Stars: Dylan Walsh, Julian McMahon, seeks out talented people, and they give them a As Schrier says, “From a marketing standpoint, Joely Richardson, John Hensley, Roma green light to do whatever they want.” it was a much sexier sell. !e sense was, if we’re Maffia, Kelly Carlson Says Landgraf: “Really talented people have going to make a lot of noise, we’ll do it with Dope. a lot of options for where they work. !ey don’t But then !e Shield pilot came in, and the execu- IT’S ABOUT: !e narcissistic Miami skin have to adapt to us — our job is to adapt to them.” tion was fantastic, and Michael Chiklis was unlike culture, as seen through the eyes of two any other cop you’d seen on TV.” jaded plastic surgeons. FX had so little currency at the time, Chiklis’s ll this acclaim seemed highly agent didn’t even want him to read for the role of INSIDE DISH: While the show is justifi- unlikely back on June 1, 1994, when FX detective Vic Mackey. Even after Chiklis prevailed, ably famous for its plastic surgery porn, debuted as fX, the fledgling cable net- he had few illusions about the show’s prospects. Murphy says FX bought a show that, work of parent company 20th Century “My expectation was that I would have a pardon the pun, cut much deeper. “I told Fox. Operating out of a large apartment in Man- great piece of tape to be able to show people in them I wanted to do a show about a love hattan’s Flatiron district, it aired a mixed bag of the community when I was up for other roles,” he affair between two men that was not live talk shows, pet shows, reruns of popular Fox says. Instead, !e Shield blew up all expectations, sexual, a show about the lasting bonds series and some forgettable originals. debuting on March 12, 2002, to a then-record of male friendship,” he says. “!ey look In the early ‘00s, HBO was the undisputed basic cable audience of 4.8 million. But the acco- beyond the obvious to something that king of groundbreaking television. It was the hey- lades were just beginning. can be more personal to you.... And day of !e Sopranos and Sex and the City, and !e Chiklis became the first star of a basic-cable because they saw that I was passionate, Wire was just over the horizon.