Watch My Show: Why Amazon’s ‘Mad Dogs’ Deserves Another Look
And you thought The Shield’s Vic Mackey was bad. Shawn Ryan, who created that gritty cop drama, would like you to get to know some Mad Dogs.
The dramedy follows a group of buddies who travel to Belize for a vacation that turns into deception and murder. Steve Zahn, Michael Imperioli, Billy Zane, Romany Malco and Ben Chaplin play the pals, who find themselves over their heads in a foreign land.
Ryan revealed earlier this week that Amazon wouldn’t be picking up a second season of the show. “Mad Dogs was originally intended to be a closed 10 episode limited series,” he wrote on Twitter. “Many critics pointed out that this wasn’t the kind of concept destined for an extended multi-season run, and that’s right. But in order to get Season 1 made Amazon wanted to know that future seasons might be possible.”
Ryan said he and series creator Cris Cole pitched a second season to Amazon, but “ultimately, Amazon didn’t want to make that story and we didn’t want to make the kind of story they wanted us to make, so it made more sense to declare victory after ten episodes, which was our original plan all along anyway. Ultimately, I think it’s better to leave it there, pure and unsullied, than to do a watered down version of the show.”
Before the show launched, Ryan filled out our “Watch My Show” Showrunner Survey to explain why we ought to be Mad for these Dogs.
I’ve got room in my life to watch just one more show. Tell me why it should be yours?
If you only have room for one more show in your life, you’re obviously in need of something that can be suspenseful, scary, funny, demented, dramatic, absurd and unpredictable all at once so you have the bases covered. That’s us.
Who should be watching?
Anyone who is, was, will be or knows a middle-aged man who never quite lived up to the dreams he had for himself.
What happens if we don’t watch your show?
Orphans in Africa die.
What’s an alternate title for your show?
Insecure Men on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
Give us an equation for your show.
The Big Chill plus Reservoir Dogs minus Beach Blanket Bingo times Monty Python and the Holy Grail minus the Knights who say “Ni”.
Come up with a premise for the spin-off.
After shocking events scandalize her home country, the Head of Tourism of Belize frantically conjures up new ways to get visitors to come back to her beautiful nation.
What credit of yours would you prefer we forget?
The commercial I was an actor in when I was 12 years old, where I kept looking directly into the camera despite repeated admonishments from the director to do anything but that.
Tell me one thing about your cast.
Insanely talented, a blast to watch, prone to Dengue Fever.
What other series would you most like to be an executive producer on?
Veep. So I could show off my underappreciated mad sitcom skills.
Let’s scare the network. Tell us an idea that didn’t make it on to the screen.
It’s Amazon. ALL our crazy ideas made it onto the screen.
Finish this sentence: “If you like _______, you’ll love our show.”
Hard drinks and a soft chair on a gorgeous beach.
Pick another show, any show, to start a fake feud with.
Not Game of Thrones. They’ve got some serious fighters on that show. I feel like we could take The Big Bang Theory folks. At least if it was real fight and not an IQ test.
What other show would you like to do a cross-over episode with — and how would that go?
The men of Mad Dogs meet up with the women of Orange is the New Black. I don’t think it’d go well for our guys.
How will your show change the face of TV as we know it?
TV? Who needs TV any more? We’re on Amazon Prime, baby! You can watch all ten episodes on any device, at any time. And this odyssey story of five college friends forced to face their fears and inadequacies in the face of strange, humorous and terrifying obstacles, is truly (for better or for worse) different than everything else on TV. Plus it’s in gorgeous 4K and the show looks fabulous. Come swim in our treacherous waters.
