The man behind The Shield: This is only marginally connected to comics, but today's blogging is turning into such a hodgepodge that I don't think it matters anymore (where's the news, dammit?). UnderGroundOnline talks to Shawn Ryan, creator of that fine TV show The Shield, about the necessary evil of Vic Mackey, and getting David Mamet to direct an episode:

"The 11th episode will be directed by David Mamet. He did a movie Spartan that is out right now. One of the stand-ins on our show worked as a stand-in on that movie. David got to know him and talked to him, and the guy talked about working on The Shield. David had seen a couple of episodes, liked it, and mentioned causally that it looks like it would be fun to direct that show. Word filtered down to us, and by the time it got to me, it was like fourth generation. So I wasn't sure if he meant it. Fortunately, we're both at the same agency, so I asked my agent to talk to his agent to see if he would be interested. It turned out he was interested, and we talked on the phone a little. We talked about how directing for television is different from film because he had never directed a TV series before. As it got closer and closer, I expected it to fall out, so I kept having these contingency plans, but he never fell out. You expect some gruff, profane guy to show up, and he could not have been more intelligent, sweet and respectful of what we've done. He came in and told us he loved what we do with the show, and he didn't want to do anything different. He made me feel at ease. I was so tongue-tied; ever since my college days he's been such a hero of mine. It was such a scary day to hand him the script he was going to direct. He loved the script and made one or two suggestions. It really turned out to be one of our creepiest and best episodes ever."