Now Is the Perfect Time to Revive This Hit 5-Part Gritty Crime Drama Cancelled Way Too Soon

6 days ago 14

Image of C. Thomas Howell dressed as a police officer from Southland.

Published Feb 21, 2026, 6:52 PM EST

Keeley Brooks is a Muscle Shoals-based author, writer, and film and television critic, but she hails from South Louisiana (Geaux Tigers!). A self-proclaimed big mouth, wordsmith, and grammar snob, she's a voracious consumer who spends the majority of her time watching, dissecting, and bringing a uniquely voiced, in-depth perspective to her features, reviews, recaps, lists, guides, and editorials. If you can't find her in front of the TV, you can just wait one minute because she'll be right back.

Throughout her career, Keeley's work has been featured in an eclectic mix of alt-weeklies, local, regional, and national entertainment publications, and across multiple digital platforms. Additionally, she is an award-winning creative non-fiction author, a mental health awareness advocate, and a health & lifestyle writer.

Over the past 20 years, television has seen some excellent gritty crime dramas, but none have been as realistic, impactful, unsuspecting, and superb as 2009’s Southland. Created by Ann Biderman, who also wrote Ray Donovan, with showrunner and executive producer John Wells, the hit police procedural, which is more of a character-driven drama, didn’t just suck audiences in with its genuine portrayals; it also made them feel they were part of the action on any given day, where literally anything could happen.

Elements like the lack of music to heighten, foreshadow, or enhance emotion and carry it from one scene to the next, combined with its rapid pace and handheld filming techniques, work to ground the show and make it feel completely unscripted, as though viewers are part of a real-life ride-along. Unfortunately, the gritty crime drama saw an abrupt cancellation at the height of its prime, much to the dismay of its fans. Recently, though, it premiered on Netflix and quickly found a whole new audience, cementing its top-10 status as one of the streamer’s most-watched shows. This proves it’s the perfect time to revive Southland.

What Is 'Southland' About?

Ben McKenzie and Michael Cudlitz in police uniforms in front of a cop car in 'Southland.'

On the surface, Southland appears to be just another police drama, but in making that assumption, you’d be dead wrong. While it is one of television's best procedural-based shows, it surpasses traditional tropes by focusing on the raw, authentic lives of patrol officers and detectives. Moreover, it goes a giant step further and emphasizes the psychological impact of the job by swan-diving right into its emotional toll and focusing on trauma, burnout, and moral complexities, as opposed to betting on hope and redemption to solve a crime each week.

The narrative showcases the unglamorous lives of law enforcement by following rookie officer Ben Sherman (The OC’s Ben McKenzie) as he trains under no-nonsense veteran cop John Cooper (The Walking Dead’s Michael Cudlitz), who is secretly battling his own horrifying demons. As Sherman is exposed to the harsh realities of the real world, he must also digest the even harsher truth of what it means to be on the force. The show also gives us the experience of homicide detectives. Regina King stars – and I do mean stars – as Detective Lydia Adams, one of the Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) best. Not only do we follow her as she navigates the complexities of investigating violent crimes, but also as she struggles to manage an extremely challenging personal life, along with biting systemic prejudices.

While these subplots are utterly compelling, it’s the show’s intense focus on the job’s psychological impact that makes it so engrossing. Through fast-paced, high-stakes, chillingly realistic action, which includes heart-pounding car chases, riots, fights, and violent gang-related crimes interspersed with in-depth character development and immobilizing moments of terror, Southland shows us that arrests rarely feel triumphant, and that violence carries long-term consequences with the power to destroy one’s foundation.

Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul in Breaking Bad

Shawn Hatosy holds a tattooed, handcuffed man leaning over the hood of car in a scene from 'Southland.'

Southland premiered on NBC in 2009 to positive reviews and 9.6 million viewers and was quickly renewed for Season 2. However, the network consistently delayed new episodes before eventually giving in and making it yet another stellar crime drama cancelled way too soon, reportedly for being too dark and gritty for broadcast TV. Luckily, TNT stepped in and saved the show, giving it 4 more glorious seasons. During its time there, it developed a niche cult following and garnered high critical acclaim.

The narrative evolved after being restructured to become more episodic, focusing on a smaller group of characters and soon sacrificing its tidy endings for more authenticity with a lack of resolution. Subplots anchored deep into aspects like mental illness in law enforcement officers, the exploration of internal police corruption, and the brutal impact of violence. We see the effects of this specifically in Season 4, when Officer Cooper goes to break up a street fight in Episode 6, "Integrity Check." In a split second, a perp rapidly and fiercely sinks his teeth into Cooper’s jugular, refusing to let go as they both writhe on the ground, covered in blood. That moment wasn’t just jarring for Cooper – it was also horrifying for viewers ... but that’s what makes it one of television's most groundbreaking crime shows ever, right?

Southland received stellar reviews from critics and fans, earning a 90% critics’ score and a 98% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, peaking with an overall 100% score for Seasons 4 and 5. In a 2009 interview, director Steven Spielberg came out as a fan of the show, calling it “genius.” Still, despite the attention and the show’s niche audience, TNT made the difficult decision not to renew it for another season, reportedly due to declining ratings, high production cost, and too much realism, hailing it as “one of the best police dramas ever made.”

Netflix Reception Proves ‘Southland’ Deserves a Revival

On January 16, 2026, all 5 seasons of Southland landed on Netflix and quickly found itself in the streamer’s list of top-10 most-watched shows. Shortly thereafter, the show hit the top 5 in the streaming charts. In other words, the gritty crime drama found an entirely new audience, one that was newer, bigger, broader, and much more receptive to its raw, in-your-face, no-holds-barred realism, proving it deserves to be revived in full on a streaming service. Audiences wouldn’t just expect extreme, violent portrayals but would be better equipped to digest such content, given the state of all-time-high tensions running rampant today.

Not only did the show reflect the chaos, danger, and unpredictability of living in the real world, but it would continue to do so in its updated storylines for the modern-day world. Furthermore, its characters deserve to be revisited and fleshed out. Inquiring minds are dying to know (and deserve to know) if John Cooper survived the Season 5 finale. If he did, is he still on the force, or was the trauma of his seeing his partner killed before his very eyes too much? Is Dewey (C. Thomas Howell) still around, and is he still sober? Is Sherman still on patrol, or has he moved on to homicide? And what about Lydia, her baby, and her baby-daddy situation? How have our characters evolved over the past 13 years? How has the force evolved, or devolved?

And then there’s Southland superstar Shawn Hatosy, who played Officer Sammy Bryant. Audiences fell in love with his character, his explosive performance, and his inherent acting talent, which propelled him into a hit role on Animal Kingdom and, most recently, The Pitt. In January, Hatosy won his first Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his portrayal of Dr. Jack Abbot in the hit medical drama. Right now, there’s nothing the public would love to see more than Officer Bryant back in action. In fact, we crave it, and he deserves it.

There’s no doubt Southland redefined the police drama with its raw storytelling, and if revived, there’s no question in its ability to upend the genre again with its flawless depictions of today’s brutal realism on-screen. So, for the love of everything holy in this world, someone please revive Southland asap. We viewers will prove why doing so would be worth it.