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Thursday, August 26, 2004
FX rescues ‘Rescue Me’
Denis Leary has accepted FX’s invitation to continue creating and starring in “Rescue Me”, the best new series of summer.
The cable network has ordered 13 additional episodes, which is good news. The bad news? We probably won’t see them until the middle of 2005. Such is the excruciating and inexplicable delay in some of the better cable dramas.
By the time “Rescue Me” returns, will we even remember this fine series? Will we remember that Leary’s character talks to his dead cousin, who was killed in the terrorist attacks of 9-11? Will we remember that his personal life is in shambles even as he soldiers on, fighting fires and internal demons?
We’ll probably remember a recent and surprisingly graphic sex scene that was extreme even by cable standards, but will we remember the emotionally probing scenes as well?
“The Sopranos” is famous for production lag-time. Months turn into years as we wait for new seasons to begin — and new seasons often consist of only a dozen episodes instead of the traditional 22. In fact, the next time we’ll see Tony Soprano in non-rerun status will be 2006.
Too bad. It doesn’t have to be this way. “Nip/Tuck” manages to keep seasons rolling without those annoying delays, and so do “The Shield” and “Monk.”
“Rescue Me” debuted in June and airs Wednesday nights at 9. By basic cable standards, it’s a mega-hit, averaging 2 million viewers for each first-run episode. That’s better than any other new cable show this summer, including all the super-hyped reality stuff.
The Bush campaign has ticked off the U.S. Olympic Committee with an ad showing swimmers from Iraq and Afghanistan that states, “This Olympics, there will be two more free nations, and two fewer terrorist regimes.”
The USOC has asked President Bush’s folks to pull the ad, which we Texans will never see anyway because we’re not residents of one of those politically coveted “swing” states. Several upset Iraqi athletes have complained about the president using them as political pawns.
The USOC, along with the International Olympic Committee, has the authority to regulate the use of anything involving the Olympics. The USOC has exclusive rights to the five-ring symbol and the word “Olympics.” A 1999 act of Congress also states that the Olympics is “nonpolitical and may not promote the candidacy of an individual seeking public office.”
In the overall scheme of campaign nastiness, this tempest seems pretty lame … but then I’m not an Iraqi soccer player.
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