When gritty turns to gold

Asuspect rapes the captain of an L.A. precinct on “The Shield” while his homey photographs the horrific incident with his cellphone camera. Two Miami plastic surgeons on “Nip/Tuck” separate conjoined twins in one scene and have three-way sex with a prostitute in another. A squad of New York firefighters on “Rescue Me” that lost four men at the World Trade Center have trouble sharing their pain so they resort to boyish bonding antics such as a penis size contest -- that is hilarious and emotionally naked -- involving rulers, rings and remote controls.

It’s not HBO, but now it doesn’t have to be. FX, the little network of NASCAR and “Fear Factor” repeats, has come into its own with original dramas that titillate, provoke and demand more from viewers than most shows on television. With edgy, sophisticated dramas centered around male characters who are as vulnerable and as flawed as anyone in Tony Soprano’s gang, the 10-year-old basic cable network owned by Fox has become appointment TV without premium channel prices. “Nip/Tuck” creator Ryan Murphy heads into Sunday’s Emmy ceremonies with a nomination for directing the show’s pilot.

“It’s great to be a part of this upstart network that wanted to shake things up,” said Michael Chiklis, who won an Emmy in 2002 and a Golden Globe in 2003 for his pit-bull portrayal of Det. Vic Mackey on “The Shield.” “Through vastly different arenas, this network deals with the ambiguity we face in society in post-9/11 America. People have heroes and villains within themselves, and life becomes about choices. To see those kinds of choices played out in the context of a drama is interesting and compelling.”

Becoming basic cable’s hottest network hasn’t come without taking some heat. Since it launched its first original drama in 2002, FX has stirred plenty of controversy -- from parental protests lodged by the Washington, D.C.-based Parent’s Television Council about graphic violence on “The Shield” to the banning of “Nip/Tuck” at an Oregon prison this month because of its steamy sex scenes. Advertisers, such as Cingular Wireless and Gateway Inc., have pulled out in disgust, as others have signed on. In the last two years, the network’s advertiser client list grew to 60 from 15, said Lou LaTorre, president of advertising sales for Fox Cable Networks.

“Our promos have advisories, and each show has a discretionary advisory and a rating, and we schedule them at 10 p.m.,” said Peter Liguori, president and CEO of FX Networks. “We’re doing everything humanly possible to respect the PTC’s positions, but we don’t market to teens at all either. We don’t think demographically. We think psychologically and graphically. We like an audience that is attracted to authenticity.”

Shari Ann Brill agrees that FX is as upfront about its programming content as it can be but says that doesn’t make some advertisers less nervous.

“We live in a pretty messed up country,” said Brill, vice president and director of programming at ad-buying firm CARAT USA. “There are a lot of conservative values in what we call the flyover states. Just because critics and viewers celebrate these shows doesn’t mean it’s an appropriate environment for some advertisers. But what’s really good is that FX is now known as the home for really great, edgy signature programming. You know that when one show ends another good one is coming, just like on HBO.”

Damaged, grieving men

The lineup has proved to be both distinctive and distinguished. Through Mackey’s ferocious Strike Team, which is as capable of arresting child molesters as stealing cash from the gangsters they kill, “The Shield” forces viewers to contemplate the price of justice. Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) and Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh), the plastic surgeons on “Nip/Tuck,” get paid to transform others physically but are often left debating their self-worth and, ultimately, the price of beauty. The damaged and grieving firefighters of “Rescue Me” pose perhaps the most delicate question of all: Three years after the terrorist attacks, where is America in the healing process?

“Every show on that network is about men at a moral crossroads,” “Nip/Tuck” creator Murphy says. “It’s not a mistake that every one of the leads is around 40 years old. They’re all concerned about the world of now, the world post-9/11, whether you’re talking about grieving firefighters or plastic surgeons creating monsters or conflicted cops.”

For FX, a network that was craving an identity and a stronghold in the ever-expanding television universe, the course to a distinctive brand was just as clear. On one side of the marketplace were basic cable networks, such as USA, TNT and TBS, which compete head-to-head with the broadcast networks. On the other was HBO, the gold standard of fresh dramas and comedies.

“We realized there was nothing in the middle, nothing in ad-supported cable television for adults who want to be challenged by their programming,” said Liguori, who took the helm of FX Networks in 1998. “We decided we would try to bridge the gap in our competitive landscape.”

The network took its first step toward establishing an identity in 2000 when Liguori launched the FX Original Movies franchise, stimulating films based on true stories, including this year’s “Redemption,” starring Jamie Foxx, “The Pentagon Papers” and “Sins of the Father.” Then in 2002, the network’s first drama series garnered basic cable’s first Emmy, a lead actor trophy for Chiklis. Last year, “Nip/Tuck” was the most-watched new basic cable show, a bragging right repeated this summer by “Rescue Me.”

Ratings for the three dramas paint a promising picture for FX. Although “The Shield” lost some of its audience this year -- 2.5 million tuned in for the third season, down from 3.3 million last year -- the second season of “Nip/Tuck” premiered with 3.8 million viewers, surpassing last year’s average of 3.3 million, and hit a high of 4.3 million viewers on Aug. 30. “Rescue Me,” starring Denis Leary -- who teamed up with Peter Tolan, his co-creator on “The Job,” to write and produce a series that is dear to his heart -- premiered in July with 4.1 million viewers and has maintained an average of 2.8 million.

As solid as those figures are for basic cable, advertisers take even more notice of the network’s success with the most desirable demographic, the 18- to 49-year-olds. Of the 8.9 million viewers who tune in to the three dramas, 6.6 million fall into that category. Additionally, the network known for its appeal to men because of NASCAR and “The Shield” now has 2.3 million women in that age group who tune in to “Nip/Tuck” and “Rescue Me.”

“I watch ‘Rescue Me’ religiously,” said Brill of CARAT USA. “It goes from comedy to grief in an instant, and the characters are so richly drawn.... For years, FX was floundering, but ‘The Shield’ gave them a beachhead and they’ve really come a long way.”

The secret, say the creators of the network’s three hits, is in their partnerships with Liguori and president of entertainment John Landgraf, who allow them to take characters previously lionized on TV -- cops, firefighters and doctors -- and turn them from automatic heroes into multidimensional human beings.

“It really appealed to me to write about a cop who you think is a good guy and can turn around and surprise you within the same episode by doing something bad,” said Shawn Ryan, creator of “The Shield.” “Our cops don’t have to solve crimes in the next episode. We don’t have to stick to a particular formula. The down side is it’s harder to engage the audience. It makes it harder to draw people because they have to commit to the series.”

Pushing the envelope

Violence, sex, foul language and drug use are all admissible on FX as long as the scenes serve the story and the characters, says Landgraf, who became president of entertainment in January.

“Most network executives will send you notes that say something is wrong,” said Tolan, co-creator of “Rescue Me.” “These guys will give you ideas for how it could work.”

Murphy, who tested executives this season with several gruesome surgeries (one blind woman traded her severely opaque eyes for prettier porcelain ones) and highly sensual moments, including a sex scene between a doctor and a doll, says he values Liguori because he allows writers to express themselves in their own voice.

“On any network, the scene with the doll would have been cut before it was ever filmed,” Murphy said. “But Peter told me he wanted to continue to believe in this character. If I could do the scene to reflect his adult male rage, we could try it. With that in mind, the scene shifted a little and it turned out even better.”

The character was Sean McNamara, a plastic surgeon whose 17-year-old marriage falls apart after he learns he is not the biological father of his son and who turns to a sex doll to unleash his bottled-up pain.

“The men on FX shows reveal more emotions but these characters have very challenging moments, so when the characters reveal emotions, it’s a believable release,” said Dylan Walsh, who plays McNamara. “It’s not just 40-year-old men being sappy. They resonate in a different way than on other networks because their boundaries are always being pushed.”

For Leary, feeling for the men who fight fires in the U.S. every day for a living comes easily. Nearly 40 men Leary grew up with in Massachusetts became firefighters, including his cousin Jeremy, who died in a massive warehouse fire in 1999.

“I don’t think firemen have ever been portrayed the way they really are, just like I don’t think fires have been portrayed the way they are,” said Leary, who founded the Leary Firefighter Foundation. “The tendency is to light everything up so you can see faces and know who the characters are. Our fires are dark and smoky and scary. You can’t make a fire scarier than making it real.”

Leary’s Tommy Gavin is a senior firefighter of an uptown Manhattan crew that lost four co-workers on Sept. 11, including his cousin and best friend, Jimmy Keefe. Unable to share his grief, Tommy loses his wife and replaces her with alcohol, prescription drugs and hot sex with an ever-changing lineup that includes his ex-wife, his cousin’s widow and truly anonymous sex with a girl whose name he can’t remember, even weeks into the relationship.

Leary turned down a six-episode commitment from USA to shoot the pilot of “Rescue Me” for FX because executives impressed him by going as far as describing their marketing strategy for the show.

“I’ve never even heard of that before and that sealed the deal,” he said. “I was a huge fan of ‘Nip/Tuck’ and thought it was a good companion on the twisted comedy side, for ‘Rescue Me’ and ‘The Shield’ had already proved how far they would go.”

Now Landgraf’s mission is to push the network further by developing comedies and reality shows that complement the brand. FX took a risky swing at the plate this year with “Todd TV,” a show that centered on a Hermosa Beach man who had no direction in his life and allowed the audience to make life decisions for him. But “Todd TV” struck out -- mainly because viewers disliked Todd.

“Reality show contestants have a tendency to come across as lab rats,” Landgraf said. “What we want is reality TV that deals with people’s behavior and emotions in an honest way.”

To that end, FX is developing “30 Days” with reality producer Ben Silverman and Morgan Spurlock of the “Super Size Me” sensation. “30 Days” places one participant in a life that starkly contrasts his own for 30 days. The pilot, which executives expect to receive this week, deals with a thirtysomething Christian NASCAR fan who moves in with a Muslim family. There is no prize at the end of the month, but the participant is paid $1,000 a day.

This week, FX also takes a second chance at comedy with a pilot that begins shooting in Brooklyn. “Starved” is the story of three middle-age men and one woman who have eating disorders and are as famished for love as they are for food. The network’s first comedy, “Lucky,” which starred John Corbett as a chronic Las Vegas gambler, received an Emmy nomination for comedic writing but was canceled in its first year.

For another drama with an ultra-contemporary theme, FX executives tapped producer Steven Bochco (“NYPD Blue” and “Hill Street Blues”), who teamed with screenwriter Chris Gerolmo (“Mississippi Burning”) for it. The pilot for “Over There,” a drama focusing on the men and women who form a combat unit in Iraq and their loved ones at home, is scheduled to shoot early next year.

“The guys at FX are almost an anachronism,” Bochco said. “They actually have a philosophy of broadcasting like in the old days. They know who they are and, more importantly, they know who they’re not. I just wish they had more money because we’d probably be shooting this thing already.”

Shoestring budgets come up frequently in conversation with the writers and producers of FX’s three signature shows. “Nip/Tuck” operates on a $1.5 million budget per episode as opposed to dramas such as “The West Wing” which spend $6 million each week.

But money isn’t everything, say Julian McMahon and Chiklis, who appreciate the visibility they have gained.

“The evolution of men is that they’re more oriented toward sentimentality,” said McMahon, 36, who is now shooting “Fantastic Four” in Vancouver with Chiklis. “The 40 age group is the best to depict that because you have real men of maturity, honor and strength but who also have the luggage of the 40 years. It’s a beautiful depiction of humanity we haven’t seen and it’s the right time for that stuff.”