While being interviewed by Ryan Seacrest on his radio show today, Southland actor Benjamin MacKenzie talked about the show’s cancellation by NBC and subsequent pickup by TNT.
MacKenzie said that he found out about the NBC cancellation while shooting on the set of Southland. He said, “I was making plans to go to New York with my publicist and the producers came on set and said, ‘We’re cancelled.’ And we said ‘You’re kidding?!? We haven’t premiered yet. You can’t actually cancel a show you haven’t premiered!’ So, we were all in a state of shock and we had a couple weeks off. I went to New York anyway and I came back and got the good news.”
He talked about how happy that the cast is to be going to the cable channel and all of the positive attention that cable shows are getting these days. “A lot of people are watching [cable]. A lot of Emmys are going to cable and, quite frankly, when everyone has cable, they can watch any channel they want so I think the network power is starting to slip.”
Mackenzie continued, “I think it’s a great place to be. We’re really excited and they’re very excited to have us. So, I think we’ll get a lot of promotion.”
Talking about Halloween, Seacrest said that he borrowed a tan CHiPs uniform from Erik Estrada for Friday night’s party and then went in an LAPD blue uniform on Saturday night, inspired by TJ Hooker and Southland.
MacKenzie said that he went as Jay Leno and laughed, “He kinda cancelled our show.” The actor said that he wore a Jay Leno mask and a “Canadian tux,” Leno’s typical casual outfit of blue jeans and a denim shirt.
He noted that it was all in good fun though and that he’s looking forward to going up against Leno’s show in the 10pm timeslot come January 12th.
What do you think? Will Southland on TNT get better ratings than Jay Leno on NBC?
Image courtesy Warner Bros.
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The Jay Leno Show
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I have not been a fan of Jay Leno’s since he decided to dominate the 10 o’clock time slot MONDAY THRU FRIDAY! For pete’s sake Jay fricken retire already! I think that Southland will do well on TNT especially since Saving Grace was just cancelled out of the blue.
This was the only cop program that didn’t follow NY City Blues or a name similar to it. My wife and I enjoyed watching this program. Please do not cancel it. My wife and I use to watch jay Leno occasionally but we like more variety in the 10:00 PM time slot.
I agree with Stephnaie…Jay Leno needs to either retire or go back to the 11:30 time slot. With Jay being in the Monday – Friday time slot they canceled a lot of good shows.