TNT Orders Up Third Season of “Southland”

Television News

TNT Orders Up Third Season of “Southland”

By our guest blogger, Sanela Djokovic

Fans of “Southland” living in fear that the realistic cop drama would be cancelled for a second time can relax until January, when new episodes are set to air. According to Variety.com, TNT has renewed “Southland” for a third season, which will consist of 10 episodes.

Variety reports that programming executive veep for TNT (along with TBS and TCM) evaluated the drama’s second season ratings, and found that although they weren’t tremendous, they were decent. While ratings were modest, executives say that the level of talent executed through the writing, direction, production and acting made “Southland” a desired stable of the network’s primetime label.

Evaluations also showed that “Southland” has extremely loyal fans, which will prove to be a necessary attribute if they are going to have to wait until January for new episodes. The long wait is nothing new for fans of cable programming, but “Southland” doesn’t have the presence and the hype that audiences are attracted to. Sure, it is a critically acclaimed drama, but for most viewers, “Southland” is just that intense cop show that got cancelled…that stars Ryan Atwood… as a cop.

It might be hard getting the stars of “Southland” on Jay Leno, but there are a number of other talk shows that will take them. That is what the show needs, because people feed off hype. Ben McKenzie and Regina King’s faces on buses, red carpets and on "Ellen."

A couple of Emmy nominations wouldn’t hurt, either, but it isn’t likely with only six episodes to constitute for the entire second season. They don’t need to shoot for cable television’s leading drama. We just hope that the third season of “Southland” secures the audience necessary to come off of live support.