57: The Closer

Celebrity marriage requires a careful balance - changes in the level of fame can either strengthen or disturb a marriage (or at least my image of them, which is really all that matters) - sure, at one time Tom Cruise and Mimi Rogers were equal, but Tom Cruise had to shoot higher (Well, Tom Cruise and Mimi Rogers were never equal. But you get the point). For years, though, the bedrock fo the Kevin Bacon-Kyra Sedgwick marriage was that Kevin Bacon was a successful actor and star of his own parlor game, while Sedgwick was essentially a relatively anonymous actress whose main claim to fame may have been her role as love interest in Phenomenon. That all changed surprisingly not long after 2005 when TNT debuted The Closer (sharing names with a very short-lived Tom Selleck show where he was an ad exec), when soon she has risen, to possibly equal status with Kevin - he's still more outright famous from his long career of movie work, but what has he done lately? The marriage, at least from what we know, doesn't seem to have suffered for it, but Sedgwick's now a star.

This was not just a success story for Kyra, but for original programming on TNT. Sure, now TNT has no problem showing hundreds of commercials for a new show, and has its share of successes, but before 2005, there were extremely few original series shown on TNT, and none of them successful. They included the short run of Witchblade, and the even shorter run of Bull, which featured Stanley Tucci and a pre-Law & Order Elisabeth Rohm, and which I'm fairly certain my parents and I were the only people who watched.

The Closer stars Sedgwick as Branda Johnson - the suave and ultra-competent head of the Homicide unit in the Los Angeles, who at the beginning of the show, is just starting in this role, having come through the police departments in both Washington DC and her hometown Atlanta, from which she sports a notable southern accent. In the beginning, her underlings are weary of the new chief with the down home manner, but as she proves her meddle, they learn to trust her. She is, of course, called the Closer for her ability to close cases, which she has done with aplomb in the few epiodes I've seen, and commercials for the show show people so ready to confess to her, that regular civilians on the street seem eager to admit minor moral sins to her out of nowhere. Thoughout all of her case solving of course, she tries to forge a personal life as well, which eventually culminates with her marriage to an FBI agent played by Jon Tenney, who is best known perhaps for being married to far-more-famous-than-him Teri Hatcher. Plus, her boss is JK Simmons, who I would watch doing anything (yes, I'm not sure what you're thinking, but anything).

Also, it should be mentioned - maybe I'm missing something, but as far as I can think of Kyra Sedgwick is the first and only female lead in a procedural. Sure, nearly every procedural has a female second-in-command, but that's hardly the same thing. Maybe one can argue Mariska Hargitay is co-lead in SVU, but that's equal at best. Sedgwick is far and away, front and center the clear lead of her show, so that's worth something in female groundbreaking firsts.

And from these simple and humble beginnings we get what is c urrently highest rated series ever on ad-supported cable (not HBO). Amazing.