FX Looks to Crossover With The Bridge

by Steve Coulter

Over the years, FX has been working slowly and methodically at closing the gap between itself and the other second-tier, non-HBO networks, most notably Showtime and AMC.

And with its latest series, The Bridge, FX may finally have a heavyweight contender to go toe-to-toe in the ring with their rival network’s critically acclaimed behemoths — AMC’s Mad Men and Breaking Bad and Showtime’s Homeland and Dexter.

I know it’s still early very early in the game — the show’s pilot episode is less than a day out of the incubator, but The Bridge has plenty of potential to be developed into the next great-serialized drama with an all-star cast headlined by German-beauty Diane Kruger and Academy Award nominees Demian Bichir and Ted Levine.

Most importantly, the plot that propels the show — two detective’s search for a serial killer who’s looking to exploit the corruption, violence and hypocrisy of Mexican-American border  — is nerve rattling and intriguing to say the least.

However, a top-notch plot and a dynamic cast are only the tip of the iceberg of why this show has so much potential.

In the pilot, we can already see the multiple socio-economic and political storylines carving into one another, layering the show with a blood trail of corpses as well as unimaginable, yet repetitive, injustices. 

There are no heroes here, only a border designed by people looking for a quick buck or a political seat and upheld by those looking for the same, or possibly even worse.

The differences between life in Ciudad Juarez and El Paso will be explored overtly and subtly throughout the shows existence, but it is this onion-like shield that will continue to be peeled back episode by episode until we see the bleak reality that exists in this area of the world.

I don’t think the goal of The Bridge is to make a political statement; rather, the show’s about exploring the depths of the human psyche and trying to figure out not how this state of affairs exists, but why it persists.

Like the psychotic murder reigning terror on female victims from ages 15 to 19, there is no time for grappling with the past; there is only the present and the future. Despite of how wide the gap is between these two neighboring cities, the one enduring fact of the situation remains — there is a bridge that connects them together.

As the show’s tagline reads, “everything is connected.” I’m sure that means more than just the characters, who, based on last night’s premiere, have less in common than any cop pairing in the history of TV.

Yes, this would be a fine legacy for any show to have, but you can tell The Bridge wants to be something so much more.

From a strictly television-based perspective, what makes The Bridge’s potential for success most exciting is the fact that it gives FX — an already progressive network that is splitting in two in the fall — a marquee summer show to team up with the network’s fall thriller, American Horror Story, and its cold-hearted winter timepiece, The Americans. (Note: I have yet to see Sons of Anarchy, my apologies.)

With a Coen Brothers produced Fargo spin-off in the wheelhouse, the breakthrough of The Bridge couldn’t come at a better time as AMC’s titans wrap up their respective stories within the next calendar year, in addition Dexter’s decline and ultimate demise this summer.

In the TV industry these shifts leave a Grand Canyon-sized gap that needs to be filled, or at least walked across.

The Bridge seems capable of pulling off this high-wire act.

Even though in its infantile stage, the show can still seize the opportunity early on to compete with the best programs on television in its first season (See: Homeland above).

Yes, I realize that even with some of the major players in retirement by the time the show’s second season premieres in Summer 2014, The Bridge will ultimately still end up chasing HBO’s starlet Game of Thrones and the network’s own era-based drama Boardwalk Empire. However, that doesn’t mean the threshold can’t be crossed, or at least altered

While AMC and Showtime have exchanged respective blows with the critics — Homeland put an end to Mad Men’s four-peat as Best Drama last fall for those of you who refuse to click the above link, HBO is still the crown jewel of the TV industry.

With that said, there’s a certain power to being No. 2.

If Game of Thrones has taught us anything, it’s that the Iron Throne is an allusion of power, while proximity to it renders actual authority.

What FX has shown us over past decade — The Shield, Rescue Me, and Justified, has gotten our attention. Now, it’s the network’s responsibility to leave us with an equally endearing message.