TNT's BOOM!

TNT’s new slogan—BOOM!—is so appropriate for the kind of shows they’re putting out now and in the past. They should have had it years ago when The Closer first appeared on the tube, causing all viewers (especially men) to fall in love with Brenda Leigh Johnson and the lady who portrayed this slightly wacky L.A. cop, Kyra Sedgwick. Their string of successful shows makes TNT the most watched, best creators of tv drama of all the networks. The Closer morphed into Major Crimes, with all the characters from Closer except Brenda Leigh, Fritz (Jon Tenney), and Will Pope (J. K. Simmons). We were fearful that MC couldn’t make it on its own, but it has, and it’s still one of our favorites, despite last week’s episode which was slapsticky silly, a plot mistake that Closer sometimes made, but one that the Major Crimes writers should beware of if they hope to keep their viewers. I look at some of the shows that were dropped before their time, shows with great scripts and great actors: Saving Grace and the off-the-wall character Grace Hanadarko played by the original off-the-wall Holly Hunter, Ray Romano’s Men of a Certain Age with such an original plot and characters that too many viewers bailed out on it before it deserved to die, and Southland with its violent realism about L. A. cops. All three great, all three canceled when they should have been renewed. Now we have this season’s crop of shows that look good: The Last Ship, Murder in the First, and one that opens in August with what sounds like another winner, Legends. Falling Skies is the only one we haven’t watched that we should have. I think the science-fiction plot turned Rosalie off and I went along with it, even though I’m an old sci-fi fan. What’s left? Perception, with the schizophrenic professor played by one of our favorites from Will and Grace, Eric McCormack; and Rizzoli and Isles, with the gorgeous Angie Harmon as Jane Rizzoli, and the very pretty (but not as pretty as Angie) Sasha Alexander as Jane’s sidekick Dr. Maura Isles. We and the rest of the Rizzoli and Isles watchers were wondering how they were going to handle the tragic death of Lee Thompson Young, who played Jane’s partner Barry Frost. We were as shocked and saddened as everyone else when we heard that Lee Young had killed himself. The season opener gave us the news that Barry Frost had been killed in an auto accident while he was on vacation. And then this week’s episode, entitled “Goodbye,” faced the problem of how to treat Barry Frost’s death as well as the death of the young man who played him, Lee Young. How would the cast manage to portray his death without simply breaking down?

They did it and did it very well. It was a memorial to the character Barry Frost as well as a memorial to Lee Young. It was about grieving and getting through the five steps of grief, with the important one of crying. The entire cast finally wept, both scripted tears as well as the real tears of the actors. And I joined them with held-back sobs but tears silently running down my cheeks. So I shout “BOOM!” to TNT for giving us so many worthwhile shows, even the ones that make me cry like a baby.