Season 5 of The Shield to be 21 episodes?

[BlackFlagg 0]

LOS ANGELES (thefutoncritic.com) -- In a surprising move by the cable channel, FX has ordered eight additional episodes of "The Shield's" fifth season - extending its run to 21 episodes.

 

It's not clear if the extra installments will run seamlessly from the initial 13 or if the network will split the season into two halves like other cable shows such as "Monk" on USA, "The Sopranos" on HBO or "Battlestar Galactica" on Sci Fi.

 

No specific reason was given for the extension. The fifth season is currently slated to bow in January.

 

Fox TV Studios and Sony Pictures Television are behind "The Shield," which comes from creator/executive producer Shawn Ryan.

 

[Youth N Asia 0]

*GASM*!

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Excellent. If this going to be the end, they'll now have plenty of room to do whatever they want with it.

[Youth N Asia 0]

Shane and Vic must duel it out this year. It's been too damn long. And I'm looking forward to Forrest Whitiker (sp) joining the cast this year.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

More Ronnie! More Lem! More Duuuuuuuuuuutch!

 

This is good.

[Youth N Asia 0]

YEAH! Put DRS in the opening credit this season. He eanred it last year. FX is the best.

[JasonX 0]

YEAH! Put DRS in the opening credit this season. He eanred it last year. FX is the best.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Speaking of DRS and his place in the credits of the show:

 

Taken from the following interview David Rees Snell recently gave:

 

Beaten and grilled: An actor’s life

 

All his life, David Snell has wanted to be an actor. So there came the day when he was sitting at his home in Los Angeles, and he was looking through the script of “The Shield,” his show. And he was noticing that his character, Detective Ronnie Gardocki, had quite a few lines and scenes.

 

“I thought, ‘This is a pretty good episode for me,’ ” Dave says.

 

Dave grew up in Wichita, and once he realized that he would never become a professional athlete, acting seemed the most glamorous life he could imagine. He studied theater at the University of Kansas. He went to Los Angeles, full of hope, and couldn’t even get an agent to see him, much less a director or producer. Dave came back to Kansas City, played at the Unicorn Theatre, Missouri Repertory Theatre, Coterie Theatre. He was in Shakespeare in the Park. He loved the work. He gave Los Angeles another try.

 

A mustache

 

He grew a mustache that his wife hated and auditioned for a part on “The Shield,” a show about urban cops who, of course, aren’t above breaking the law. They liked Dave. They liked the mustache. To this day, Dave is not sure which quality got him the part. Over the next four years Dave has been able to trace his progress on the show by his credit line. You wouldn’t believe how important the credit line is — actors actually negotiate to have the word “and” added to their credit (“and David Doyle as Bosley”).

 

First, Dave was an “extra.”

 

Then, he was “co-star.”

 

Then, he moved up to “guest star.”

 

“I always thought ‘co-star’ was bigger than ‘guest star’,” I told him.

 

“Maybe it is,” he says. “But that’s not what they told me.”

 

Then, it was, “Also starring David Rees Snell.”

 

And now, finally, he is a fully credited cast member.

 

“I never got to be a special guest star,” he says with some regret.

 

Blue-collar business

 

Along the way, Dave worked. That’s another thing people don’t know — acting, especially being on a series like “The Shield,” is a blue-collar business. It isn’t caviar in the trailers and cheeky poses for the publicity men. Dave often gets up for a 5:15 actor call. He spends a half-hour in makeup. He reads the scene, then reads it again, then acts it out, then acts it out again, then leaves while all the lighting is set up. When he gets back, he has to act out the scene again and again until it’s right. And that’s just one scene. Dave tends to be in 30 or 40 scenes a week. He usually puts in 12-hour days.

 

He’s not complaining. It’s a pretty good life. His wife, Melanie Myers, also plays on the show sometimes. They have a 1-year-old daughter. And Dave is a working actor, just like he dreamed. He just worked in a Western that will play on the Hallmark Channel. He has done a few short films. And he’s still Ronnie Gardocki every week on “The Shield.” This makes his fifth season with the show.

 

It’s hard because Ronnie Gardocki is not exactly a major character. For a long time, the mustache was Ronnie’s most apparent quality. Now, he wears a beard. It’s not much to go on. The “Gardockifans” Web site explains Ronnie’s personality this way:

 

“He is a member of the strike team, headed by Vic Mackey. Not much is known about Ronnie other than he is single (to all known knowledge), he thinks that the ladies love his mustache, and that he is allergic to cats.”

 

This is on his FAN site.

 

“When I was acting in the theater, I always knew the whole story,” Dave says. “So, even if I was playing a small part, I would think, ‘OK, how can I help tell this story?’ But with Ronnie, it’s weird, because I don’t know the story. I might think of Ronnie as, say, a former football player who got hurt and decided to become a cop. But then, the next week, the writers might tell me, ‘No, Ronnie’s a former ballet dancer.’ ”

 

Beaten and grilled

 

So anyway, Dave is reading the script this one day and his character, Detective Ronnie Gardocki, has just a bunch of lines. He keeps on reading, and the script twists a bit, takes us into Vic Mackey’s apartment — Vic is the main character on the show. Vic is making out with some beautiful woman. Then Vic smells something. Gas. He stands up, rushes to the kitchen and there’s Ronnie, lying on the floor, having been beaten and grilled on the stove.

 

“I jumped out of my chair,” Dave says. “And I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to die. What’s going on here? Am I going to die?’ I called up the producer and said, ‘Am I going to die? Am I going to die?’ ”

 

Nope. Just maimed and disfigured.

 

Which means more time in makeup, maybe, but for a working actor, it’s worth it.