Smallscreen News

'Justified' a bona fide hit for FX, home of the gritty drama

By April MacIntyre Mar 18, 2010, 5:32 GMT

Premiere Screening of Justified held at The Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles, California on March 8th, 2010. Timothy Olyphant Fame Pictures, Inc - Santa Monica, CA, USA - +1 (310) 395-0500

No surprise as "Justified", writer / producer Elmore Leonard's smallscreen drama for FX has performed very well in ratings.

The series got a great start Tuesday (10-11:10 PM, 3/16/10) as the series premiere episode posted 4.16 million Total Viewers and 2.04 million Adults 18-49.  Justified recorded 1.42 million Men 18-49, which was the second-highest delivery in that demo ever for a scripted series premiere on basic cable.

FX released a statement that revealed Justified’s delivery of Total Viewers and Men 18-49 ranks second all-time for an original series on FX just behind the Emmy® and Golden Globe® award-winning drama The Shield (4.83 million Total Viewers and 1.74 million Men 18-49; 3/12/02, which pre-dates DVR data).  

Justified ranked #1 for the night in basic cable in Total Viewers, Adults 18-49, Men 18-49, Men 18-34 (694,000), Adults 25-54 (2.19 million), and Men 25-54 (1.42 million).  Justified also ranked #1 in all of television in the 10 PM time period in delivery of Men 18-49 and Men 18-34, broadcast or cable.  

Monsters and Critics had a chance to talk to Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) the nemesis to Raylan Givens in their small Kentucky town. Interview

Top Five FX Series Premieres (000s)

Total Viewers    Adults 18-49    Men 18-49

The Shield (3/12/02) 4,827  The Shield  3,037  The Shield 1,739

Justified (3/16/10)  4,158  The Riches (3/12/07)  2,842  Justified  1,421

Rescue Me (7/21/04) 4,071  Rescue Me  2,516  Rescue Me 1,341

Over There (7/27/05) 4,062  Over There  2,385  Over There 1,325

Dirt (1/2/07)  3,744  Dirt   2,362  The Riches 1,309

(*Data prior to series premieres of 12/26/05 is based on Live viewing; post 12/27/05 data is Live+Same Day)

FX will run encores of the premiere episode of Justified on Friday, March 19 at 11pm e/p and on Sunday, March 21 at 11:30 pm e/p.  Episode 2, “Riverbrook”, airs next Tuesday, March 23 at 10pm e/p.  Raylan hunts an escaped prisoner who is determined to reunite with his ex-wife…and his stashed fortune.   

The premise:

Developed for television by Graham Yost and starring Timothy Olyphant, Justified  is based on the popular Elmore Leonard character “Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens” featured in several Leonard novels and his short story Fire in the Hole.  

Olyphant stars in the lead role of Givens, a true-blue hero born and reared in the hill country of eastern Kentucky, who left at age 19 to become a U.S. Marshal.  Now, years later, after shooting a gun thug in a Miami hotel and thereby incurring the wrath of his Marshals Service superiors, Raylan has been sent in punishment (and by fate?) to the one place to which he vowed he would never return – Kentucky.  But, being back in Kentucky, Raylan will also have to confront a past crowded with enough skeletons to choke a graveyard. 

The series co-stars Nick Searcy as Givens longtime friend and boss “Chief Deputy Art Mullen”; Jacob Pitts as “Deputy Marshal Tim Gutterson”; Erica Tazel as “Deputy Marshal Rachel Brooks”; Joelle Carter as “Ava Crowder,” Boyd’s sister-in-law; and Natalie Zea as Raylan’s ex-wife “Winona Hawkins.”  Walton Goggins guest stars as “Boyd Crowder,” who worked with Raylan in the coal mines as teenagers and has now chosen a criminal path.  

Okay "Sons of Anarchy" fans, when season three rolls around and we are on the edge of our seats for the plight of Abel, Jax's son, and the IRA connection to Charming, the race is on for FX ratings stats. Time for SAMCRO to make TV history.