Here’s a sneak peek at tonight’s all-new episode of The Closer entitled ‘Tapped Out’. You can watch it in a slightly larger format at tnt.tv, and they also have a clip from next weeks episode there as well, which I can’t seem to embed properly here. Thanks to Kristi for the link.

You can get more of The Closer at thecloserdvd.com as well as the main official site.

(S05E03) If you were Kyra Sedgwick and you were asked to choose an episode of The Closer for Emmy consideration, this would be a strong candidate. For one thing, Ms. Sedgwick was given a really strong adversary, another likely Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series, Battlestar Galactica’s Mary McDonnell. As Captain Sharon Raydor, Force Investigation Division, McDonnell made an immediate impression.

BEWARE OF SPOILERS for those outside the US!!

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TNT (Turner Network Television) has become the flagship cable station when it comes to strong female lead characters. Not only have they assumed this role, they have been extremely successful in the strategy as well.

The franchise player in this ensemble of shows is “The Closer”. This crime-drama which began June 13, 2005, stars actress Kyra Sedgwick, who has to be the comeback actress of the decade. Sedgwick won the “Best Actress” award for lead role in a dramatic television series at the Golden Globe Awards in 2007 for “The Closer”. Sedgwick plays savvy, intelligent, Deputy Police Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson, of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Major Crimes Division. Johnson, a Georgia native, is a driven investigator with a southern drawl and a gift for interrogation. The show focuses around Johnson and the Major Crimes Division’s efforts to solve crimes of public prominence, while dealing with the bureaucratic relationships that occur within their law enforcement organization. Johnson’s husband (John Tenney) also works in law enforcement, as an agent for the FBI. As of the close of its third season in September of 2003 , “The Closer” became ad supported cable’s number one scripted series of all time. For the week beginning Monday, June 15, 2009, the show was the number one rated broadcast on cable with 6.469 million viewers, according to Nielson Media Research. “The Closer” airs Mondays at 9PM ET on TNT.

Kyra Sedgwick Shoulders Fifth Season of The Closer
Kyra Sedgwick describes her Closer character, Brenda Johnson, as “incredibly delicate and fragile and yet really, really strong and fierce” — and to look at Sedgewick, that could describe her as well. Dressed in an immaculate white dress, surrounded by a crush of people working the room at TNT’s recent spring presentation to reporters and advertisers, she looks as endangered as a lilly at the side of an on-ramp.

Until you see her up close.

Sedgwick, it turns out, is ripped. She’s small, of course, but with sturdy shoulders and slender, powerful-looking calves. Maybe it’s the dress, but the actress seems to draw the light in a room filled with star power, including not only Saving Grace star Holly Hunter, but Jada Pinkett Smith, star of the network’s new HawthoRNe, and her husband, Will Smith, one of the most bankable movie stars in the world. And yet Sedgwick stands out — perhaps because she’s the essence of TNT.

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Southern accents, like the Georgia twang that New York-raised Kyra Sedgwick drawls on “The Closer,” are rare for lead characters on TV. Critics and fans have been vocal about their love-it-or-hate-it relationship with Sedgwick’s thick delivery, but series creator James Duff says neither he nor TNT execs ever considered losing the accent.

“There was never any question at all, because the character of Brenda Johnson was complete with that accent,” Duff says. “TNT was interested in a complete character, and I think the accent was the finishing touch. I always felt like, ‘If people hear her authenticity, they’ll hang out more with the show.’”

Hang out they have, with improved ratings, according to Nielsen, over the course of four seasons. Not that Duff doesn’t still read accent bashing online.

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