Fans can rejoice as new life has been given into their favorite police drama, Southland, with TNT announcing this morning that they’ve closed the deal to pick up the popular series recently canceled by NBC for being too dark and inappropriate for their 9pm time slot.

TNT has picked up the critically acclaimed series SOUTHLAND, closing a deal with Warner Bros. Television that will bring the drama from Emmy®-winning producer John Wells (ER, The West Wing) to the network in January.  TNT has obtained exclusive rights to air all six episodes that have been shot for the second season, as well as the seven episodes from the series’ first season.  SOUTHLAND will air on TNT Tuesdays at 10 p.m. (ET/PT), beginning with the first episode of the series on Jan. 12.

We recently reported that there were rumors about TNT picking up the series, but nothing was substantiated and no one really knew if it would come to fruition. Southland has been on quite the journey as its second season run was supposed to start September 25, but was pushed back to October 23 only to be canceled by the network on October 8. Now, almost a month later, the show has found a new home. There haven’t been many shows able to pull off such a feat.

Much credit has to be given to executive producer John Wells who, upon news of Southland’s cancellation, promised to find a new home for the series.

“We’re delighted that TNT has stepped forward to pick up SOUTHLAND.  We are all extremely proud of the show,” Wells said.

I know what you’re thinking. Sure, they’re picking up the show and they’re going to air the six already produced episodes of the second season, but what happens after that? Are they going to order any additional episodes?

TNT has decided to wait until after the initial six episode run before they make a decision on whether or not to order any additional episodes. They’ve given the show a new channel, day and time. Now it’s all up to the fans to make sure it stays that way. Although, if Southland is able to retain a fraction of the average 7.5 million viewers who turned into the first season, it’ll be a home run.

Still, there will be enough time to wonder about the future of the show. Today, fans can be happy as their wishes have been granted.

Now, who at TNT can we talk to about picking up Life? Cause I’ve been hankering for some Charlie Crews, fresh fruit and Zen.

Southland will premiere January 12 at 9PM on TNT.

Source: Turner Newsroom

After we announced last week that NBC had abruptly canceled Southland, fans of the show were appropriately upset as the decision came without a single episode of the second season to making it on air. While executive producer John Wells had said he intended on shopping the show around to other networks in hopes of saving it, we had no idea when or if that would come to fruition.

Today, it looks like there may be hope for the critically acclaimed Southland as TNT is currently in talks about picking up the sophomore series. How far are the talks? Well, TNT has released this statement:

“We continually look at all programming opportunities that fit our portfolio of brands.”

Yesterday, Southland executive producers Ann Biderman and Christopher Chulack walked on the set of the critically acclaimed police drama while they were filming their sixth episode of the season and announced to the cast and crew that it has been canceled and would not return for its sophomore season even though not a single episode of the five completed had aired. They will continue filming and complete the sixth episode of its second season this week.

It’s been reported that the decision to cancel the show after execs over at NBC screened the first four episodes of this season and deemed them too dark an inappropriate for a 9PM time slot. This season was going to focus more on Adams (Regina King), Sherman (Benjamin McKenzie) and their partners Cooper (Michael Cudlitz) and Brown (Arija Bareikis) rather than the ensemble cast of the first season.

NBC has released the schedule of dates for their fall 2009 / 2010 season.

A pair of new dramas lined up for us are Parenthood & Trauma and some returning shows are Heroes, Law & Order: SVU and Law & Order.  Southland survived it’s first season and is returning for a second.

On Monday, May 5th 2009, The Jay Leno network NBC announced a slate of new shows at their In-Fronts for the 2009 / 2010 television season.  No the above screen shot is not from their in-fronts.  It’s a behind the scenes shot from NBC’s new show, Day One.

Keeping in mind that we here at Screen Rant are all about action / adventure and sci-fi / fantasy (with a dribble of comedy). I’ve left out some details on the new NBC comedy shows but only because we do like our action-adventure shows.  Rather than babble about what I am going to say, I might as well get right to it:

It’s Thursday and I hope that April 15th didn’t treat you too harshly yesterday. Whether it did or not, I’m still here to razz or rant on some stuff that’s happening in and around the tube.

Stargate Universe

As if this is a surprise to Stargate fans, but Stargate Universe will be having a few notable guest stars in the form of a few veterans reprising their Stargate SG-1 roles.

Yep, you read that right.