The End of The Line for “The Shield”?

TV critic Aaron Barnhart writes on his blog about the goings-on with The Shield. In case you’re not familiar with it, the show is about a set of corrupt cops on LA’s “strike team”, a group brought together to bring down drug dealers, prostitution and the like. Oh, and it’s no spoiler that the cops are corrupt — that’s a running theme throughout the show. What makes the show interesting, in part, is that the corruptness of those cops isn’t black-and-white; in many cases, the cops are merely bending the rules (in other cases, they’re busting heads).

The show is on its fifth season and it’s one of my favorite shows on the air. However, what Barnhart reports is that series creators Shawn Ryan and David Mamet have also been working on another show, The Unit on CBS. So far, so good, right? Well, indeed, The Unit has been doing very well in the ratings and that could spell an exit route for Ryan and Marnet:

The outcome of “The Shield” may be turning on another program that aired last night. “The Unit,” from “Shield” creator Shawn Ryan plus David Mamet, scored what CBS is promoting as a significant share of its previous week's rating (85%), given the fact that last week's had a “NCIS” first-run lead-in and this was a rerun.

If “The Unit” keeps putting up decent numbers, the temptation would be strong for Ryan to make these next 10 episodes of “The Shield” the last. He intimated as much in an interview last week on public radio.

I’m not saying that I want The Unit to tank, but I sure would like to see The Shield continue. It’s one of those shows where, at the end of an episode, I just can’t wait for the next one. It’s that good :).