Creator of ‘The Shield’ making a pilot for Amazon

Amazon straight cleanin’ up creators from some of my favorite shows and turning them lose on producin’ original content for them. First Chris Carter, and now Shawn Ryan.

Amazon’s original content arm is continuing to attract top-flight talent, as Shawn Ryan has signed up to produce a pilot for Amazon Streaming. Ryan is best-known for creating The Shield, and has since created The Chicago Code and Last Resort, while also serving as showrunner for Terriers and The Unit. His next series will be Mad Dogs, a remake of a British series that managed to air a total of 14 episodes over the course of four seasons. The show follows four men who travel to Belize to visit an old friend from school, but things later take an unexpected turn for the violent.

If Ryan’s previous programs have a unifying theme, it’s that of violence being handled by professionals, so it should be interesting to see how he handles four characters who are out of their depth. And while 14 episodes may mean four seasons over in Limeytown, here in the good ol’ U-S-of-A, that sounds more like a first-season order from Amazon (Alpha House’s first season ran 11 episodes), so it remains to be seen how Ryan will continue what was a fairly self-contained story over multiple seasons.

[AV Club]