Unless they’re all-time greats, it can be easy to forget about many shows that came out 10, 15, 20 years ago. Until they’re scooped up by streaming, at least. Now, Netflix’s best newly added show has a stunning 98% Rotten Tomatoes audience score across all five seasons.
The show is Southland, which was just recently added to Netflix. It originally aired in 2013, and while it was viewed enough to get those five seasons, one on NBC and four on TNT, this is well before the streaming era, and when we talk about “best of” lists, I rarely hear Southland in the conversation, even when it should be. A 90% critic score, plus that almost unheard of 98% audience score for five years, should convince you, if nothing else. Here’s the synopsis:
“Veteran Los Angeles cop John Cooper is assigned to train rookie Ben Sherman, who finds himself questioning whether he has the right stuff to be a police officer after witnessing Cooper’s no-nonsense approach.”
The show stars Michael Cudlitz as the veteran and Ben McKenzie as the rookie. I know Cudlitz best for his role on The Walking Dead as Abraham. He even had a spin as Lex Luthor recently on Superman and Lois.
Ben McKenzie, meanwhile, starred in a show that shaped my youth, The OC, before graduating to Southland in 2009 and then 100 episodes of Gotham as a young Commissioner Gordon, who led that series. Gotham is also underrated but no 98% audience score for that one.
Despite not originally airing as a streaming series across two TV networks, this is not one of those 20-24 episode monster shows we used to get. Season 1 has 7 episodes, season 2 has 6, and the last three have 10. Still, 43 episodes in total to get through, and it’s just a fantastic series. I’d put it right up there with The Shield, as crazy as that may sound (I’m not going to go as far as The Wire, of course).
It’s certainly a great get for Netflix. It has arrived at #9 on the Netflix top 10 list, charting when the also-good, recently-added Veronica Mars has not.
So, any chance for a Southland revival if this turns into a Netflix megahit? Even after five seasons, it was still abruptly cancelled, which did not seem terribly logical at the time, given its high quality. But here it lives again, and likely with a bigger audience before. Though shows have to go absolutely insane on the Netflix top 10 list to have a prayer at “saving,” a-la-manifest. So no, that won’t happen. Plus, Ben McKenzie has mostly pulled back from acting and interestingly, became an extremely vocal anti-crypto voice a few years back, including writing a book about it. Who knew? Anyway, watch Southland.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.