There were times several months ago, when the writers strike was roaring, that Shawn Ryan was channeling Vic Mackey. Ryan, who created TV's ferocious, all-in-one good-cop-bad-cop, isn't anything like the lead character of "The Shield." But, as Mackey has proven through six seasons, everyone has his limits.
Ryan found himself reaching his while serving on the Writers Guild's negotiating committee. Like everyone else on the picket line, he had a lot riding on the negotiations. When he stopped working, the fate of his moderately rated CBS drama "The Unit" hung in the balance; "The Oaks," a pilot he was producing for Fox, was shot without his supervision; and the series finale of "The Shield," the cop drama that turned Ryan into one of the medium's most prominent producers and launched FX as a destination for cutting-edge original programming, also was filmed without him. Many of his peers would later say they wouldn't have had the fortitude to make the same sacrifices.
"There was the temptation to go Vic Mackey if they didn't solve this real soon," Ryan recalled recently, in his office on the Fox lot, where he produces "The Unit" and awaits the Sept. 2 premiere of the last season of "The Shield. "But instead, I spent a lot of time talking to people who are a lot smarter than me about what do we do now?
"It was a real education for me," said the 41-year-old father of two. "I learned about the companies that run this business, and politics, leverage and power. It was interesting to see how a group of lawyers treated the likes of Carlton Cuse ("Lost") and Marc Cherry ("Desperate Housewives") and Neal Baer ("Law & Order: SVU") and Carol Mendelsohn ("CSI: Crime Scene Investigation") and people who have created properties that have made those companies so much money. I didn't think it was right."
Right and wrong: The distinction is, to put it mildly, blurry for Mackey, who manages to be a hero and an antihero simultaneously, committing the most heinous acts imaginable while eliciting compassion from viewers. For Ryan, who "grew up with Midwest values and always knew his parents loved him," it comes naturally to play by the rules, said his wife, Cathy Cahlin Ryan, who portrays Mackey's ex-wife on the show.
But show runners were in a tough predicament during the strike: Pencils down meant no writing; did it also mean not producing? No editing? Ryan says he thought about it for a few days and concluded that editing is intrinsic to writing and he chose not to work at all, even though it meant not being present as "The Shield" filmed its 88th and final episode, which will air in November.
