'The Shield' nears shift's end

Shawn Ryan, creator of "The Shield," said the end of the drama, which premiered in 2002, will unfold without an ambiguous or mysterious meaning -- the kind that distinguished the series finale of "The Sopranos." The two popular series have often been compared because of their revolutionary approaches to traditional genres.

The final act of "The Shield" is simultaneously explosive and eerily quiet. "I was a fan of 'The Sopranos,' but I had some problems with the way it ended," Ryan said. "I feel 'The Shield' ends on a right and proper note."

"The Shield," which follows a beleaguered Los Angeles police station and its renegade strike team, established FX as a top cable network and proved basic cable could develop quality fare instead of movies and network reruns. Like "The Sopranos," the series is centered on an antihero: Det. Vic Mackey, a dedicated police officer whose unorthodox and brutal methods shadow his crime-fighting.

Though Michael Chiklis, whose portrayal of Mackey scored a first-season Emmy for outstanding lead actor in a drama series, has gotten the lion's share of attention, he has been surrounded by seasoned character actors who have all made their mark on the show's gritty realism. Film actors Forest Whitaker and Glenn Close also dropped in for season-long story arcs.

Some core cast members -- CCH Pounder (Capt. Claudette Wyms), Benito Martinez (Councilman David Aceveda) and Jay Karnes (Det. Holland "Dutch" Wagenbach) -- gathered recently at FX to discuss the series and its legacy. Participating by telephone was Walton Goggins (Det. Shane Vendrell) who was on location in Canada shooting a film.

"The Shield" and "The Sopranos" have both been cited as examples of drama series that took established genres and turned them on their heads. What is the place of "The Shield" in the spectrum of television?

Karnes: What I find compelling is that it's a timeless tale -- you could put it almost anywhere. It's "Macbeth." Here is Vic Mackey, a confident man who decides he's going to break the rules, and not the small rules. He's going to kill somebody, he's going to lie to the people he's close to. And ultimately he and those people pay for that.