Every once in a while you come across a show that no one has heard of, or no one is watching, even if they are of aware of said shows existence. I am lucky enough to be ahead of most of you with my watching of FX’s newest piece of awesomeness, “Justified” . It stars the always cool and collected Timothy Olyphant as a US marshall, who after an unfortunate shooting in Miami, gets relocated to his home state of Kentucky and back into the life he made great efforts to avoid. What really made this a must see for me though, aside from Olyphant, is that the series is based around a story by Elmore Leonard. Yes, THE Elmore Leonard, the man responsible for Get Shorty, Out of Sight and Jackie Brown.
What they have done here is take the characters the Elmore created and expanded on them to fill in the show and series. The first episode is directly taken from Leonard’s work, but everything that follows is sort of a re-imagining of what the world would be like if it was continued in Leonard’s voice. This may seem like a cop out to many, but rest assured its not. Elmore is an executive producer on the show, so I am quite positive that if the work is not up to his standard and vision, it wont get made.
What we do get is a modern day cowboy story, with Olyphant riding into town and dispensing his brand of justice, which often ends up with someone being shot. The stories are cool and fun and the cast of characters is always interesting to watch. There is a slow burn building with the show as little by little we are told about Olyphants past and his fractured relationship with his criminal father. How that comes to resolution is yet to be seen, but I for one can’t wait to see how it plays out.
This is yet another high mark for the little known network FX. They already bring us “Its always sunny in Philadelphia” (my personal face), “Rescue me” and “Sons of Anarchy”. Three shows that must be watched by any fan of well written TV. Now we have a fourth. “Justified” is the must see TV show of the spring season. (Along with Treme, The Pacific, and Breaking Bad, but those will be saved for another post)
Every once in a while you come across a show that no one has heard of, or no one is watching, even if they are of aware of said shows existence. I am lucky enough to be ahead of most of you with my watching of FX’s newest piece of awesomeness, “Justified” . It stars the always cool and collected Timothy Olyphant as a US marshall, who after an unfortunate shooting in Miami, gets relocated to his home state of Kentucky and back into the life he made great efforts to avoid. What really made this a must see for me though, aside from Olyphant, is that the series is based around a story by Elmore Leonard. Yes, THE Elmore Leonard, the man responsible for Get Shorty, Out of Sight and Jackie Brown.
What they have done here is take the characters the Elmore created and expanded on them to fill in the show and series. The first episode is directly taken from Leonard’s work, but everything that follows is sort of a re-imagining of what the world would be like if it was continued in Leonard’s voice. This may seem like a cop out to many, but rest assured its not. Elmore is an executive producer on the show, so I am quite positive that if the work is not up to his standard and vision, it wont get made.
What we do get is a modern day cowboy story, with Olyphant riding into town and dispensing his brand of justice, which often ends up with someone being shot. The stories are cool and fun and the cast of characters is always interesting to watch. There is a slow burn building with the show as little by little we are told about Olyphants past and his fractured relationship with his criminal father. How that comes to resolution is yet to be seen, but I for one can’t wait to see how it plays out.
This is yet another high mark for the little known network FX. They already bring us “Its always sunny in Philadelphia” (my personal fave), “Rescue me” and “Sons of Anarchy”. Three shows that must be watched by any fan of well written TV. Now we have a fourth. “Justified” is the must see TV show of the spring season. (Along with Treme, The Pacific, and Breaking Bad, but those will be saved for another post)
Nope, not ahead of me (this time)! Loving this show more and more as the week’s go by, and you’re right, F/X is on a roll, though you left out their two most recent comedies (I think), both of which aren’t spectacular, but are solid. First there’s The League (about fantasy football; you probably have to be into it to like the show), and second is Archer, the wry, profane spy animated comedy that might as well be Arrested Development II with all of the AD alums they get to do the voices.
But Justified rocks. Love the character actors they’ve gotten so far, always love Olyphant, and the writing more than lives up to Leonard’s name.
I’ll trust you on this one, Brian. I enjoy those other 3 FX shows as well…they’ve got a solid line-up! I like Olyphant too…ever since I saw him in “Go”.
Now, do us all a favour and put your ear to the ground and find out when “Rescue Me” Season 6 will start…k? Thanks.
I’m with Planman. Ever since Todd Gaines, I’ve kept an eye out for Olyphant…except when he was in Hitman.
That said, I have been looking for a TV series that really impresses me and after 3 episodes, I am now very very fond of Justified. Olyphant makes the show, of course the awesome writing and dialog helps…”You got ceviche off the back of a taco truck? What did you expect?”
I feel the same way about this show as I do about House; stellar titular character, great writing and awesome situations!
I’m in LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE with this show and Timothy Olyphant.
The writing is incredible and it feels like this is Olyphants time to shine.
I am so glad that so many of you are already on board with this piece of wicked TV. I was hoping I wasn’t alone on this one. Fletch, I have watched the league and actually quite liked it, I just didn’t feel it was list worthy just yet since it only had 6 eps in se1. And I have yet to watch Archer, but since you give it the stamp of approval I will definately check it out now. I really hope this show takes off and gets a following because we need things like this on our TVs and less of the mainstream crap about sexy doctors or ABC’s attempts at SCI-FI.
Marc…agreed, Hitman was a definite coaster.
I just watched the first episode of Justified last night…good start, I’m not in love with it yet, but I can see the potential. I love the redneck aspect! I shall dig a little further.
Thanks for the recommendation!
Yeah, I’m not desperately in love either. The first two episodes seemed a little unbalanced in comparison to each other. The first one had a more serious tone to it, something like SAMCRO. The second episode on the other hand, seemed quite a bit sillier, kind of like The Mentalist or something. Not giving up yet though.