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Today's cuppa: coffee-shop coffee (with good conversation!)

On the LAPD drama "Southland," airing Tuesdays on TNT, Michael Cudlitz (right) plays veteran Officer John Cooper, who's trying to prepare rookie Officer Ben Sherman (Benjamin McKenzie, left) to survive as a cop on the mean streets of Los Angeles.

A while ago on Twitter, after doing a "Southland" set visit that resulted in this feature story, I tentatively suggested that Cudlitz -- who projects a tough, no-nonsense image on the show -- should be on ABC's ballroom-dancing competition show "Dancing With the Stars."

The new season -- cycle 12 -- of "DWTS" begins in March, and the new cast has yet to be announced. ABC is even soliciting viewer suggestions on the Website.

This was his reaction (he RTed -- retweeted -- my original tweet, adding a comment of his own on the front end) ...


But several tweeters seemed interested in the prospect -- so I next took the question to the man who spends his working days in a police car with Cudlitz.

"Oh, yeah," said McKenzie when asked if Cudlitz needs to trip the light fantastic. "I just want to say that I have personally seen Michael dance on numerous occasions, and he's really underselling himself. He's being modest, which is his way of being, but he is a phenomenal dancer. I wouldn't lead you astray. He's pretty great."

It was hard to tell if the deadpan McKenzie was being serious or had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, but I decided to play along.

Asked if Cudlitz might be better at the classic ballroom or Latin dances, McKenzie said, "Well,  ballroom is probably the way he first learned, because he's technically very precise, but he has that flava -- not flavor, flava -- that I think would really translate into a South American kind of looser vibe.

 "I think he's a double threat. He can go either way. He's going to surprise some people. I, for one, would like to second that emotion and get him on 'Dancing With the Stars.' That would be phenomenal."

But McKenzie had some conditions that would need to be fulfilled if he were ever to consider going on 'Dancing.'

"No," he said, "not unless Michael really mentored and tutored me. If you could promise me that Michael Cudlitz would teach me to dance in a pretty rigorous course of three or four months, maybe -- but only under those circumstances. Otherwise, I don't think I'd be good enough."

So there you have it. Either McKenzie was completely full of hot air or he sincerely wants his bestest buddy to lace up those dancing shoes.

Tonight's cuppa: decaf Irish breakfast tea

On Tuesday, Jan. 12, at 10 p.m. ET, the ensemble police drama "Southland" returns to the air on TNT, after being unexpectedly canceled by NBC.

The show performed reasonably well in the Thursday, 10 p.m. ET/PT slot when it aired on NBC in the spring of 2009, well enough to earn a renewal. But with six episodes in the can, NBC pulled the plug on "Southland" two weeks before its scheduled premiere last fall.

TNT begins its run with the seven episodes that aired already on NBC before moving on to the as-yet-unseen second-season episodes in March.

Star Michael Cudlitz, who plays LAPD Patrol Officer John Cooper (in partnership with rookie Ben Sherman, played by Benjamin McKenzie), has tirelessly championed the show on Twitter, as @cudlitz. A recent message, or "tweet," sent to his followers late Monday night, proclaims, "Let's kick some a-- tomorrow night. Southland style !!!!"

"We're coming back, yeah!" he says.

Asked if he's a bit cranky at NBC, Cudlitz says, "You know what, not really. I was mad the way they did what they did, not that they did it. Now we've moved on, so it really doesn't matter.

"TNT really wants this to work, and if it does work, we'll definitely go into production."

Says executive producer John Wells, "We're hoping the audience we had will follow us, and maybe we'll see a few more people as well."

As Cudlitz indicated, if those few more show up and bring a few more of their friends, that could mean TNT would commit to producing new episodes. Financially, it's within their reach. "Southland" shot on handheld digital cameras, mostly on location, often with natural light, so its costs were somewhat lower than a standard network drama.

"It's not less expensive than what TNT would pay for other programming," says Wells, "but it allows us to put a broadcast-network-quality program on cable."

Of course, "Southland" did briefly have the marquee Thursday NBC slot which had for many seasons been home to Wells' medical drama "ER." This past fall, NBC pulled all its 10 p.m. scripted and reality programming to instead air "The Jay Leno Show" five days a week.

As announced this past Sunday at the biannual Television Critics Association Press Tour, currently being held in Pasadena, Calif., NBC has decided to end the Leno experiment -- at the request, one might even say, demand, of their affiliates, which felt that the show was not a good lead-in for their local news and was causing them to lose audience and ad revenue.

As of this writing, NBC's latenight situation has yet to be fully hammered out, but NBC entertainment chief Jeff Gaspin said that at least two scripted shows would, in the short term, go back into the 10 p.m. ET/PT slot at some point in the midseason (but definitely not until after the Winter Olympics, which start Feb. 12).

While all this comes too late for "Southland," Wells hopes this is a sign of good things to come. Speaking on the Friday before the Leno announcement (but after rumors had been flying that Leno's show was coming to an end), Wells admits he doesn't have a show in his back pocket to pitch to NBC for the hour, but, he says, "I'm just delighted that they're going to start programming it again.

"I have had a lot of success and enjoyed working with NBC over the years, so it would be great if they wanted to do some of the kinds of shows that I like to do again."

Wells harbors hope for the future of broadcast television as a platform for quality shows.

"I came up in broadcast television," he says, "and I've had a lot of success there and enjoy it. I really hope that these kinds of shows still have a real home on broadcast television and not only on cable, both basic and pay cable.

"I hope people will be committed to making a certain kind of high-end show, made for adult audiences, and that there's still a place for that on network television."

At the moment, Wells is very happy with TNT, and in the best of all possible outcomes, new "Southland" episodes could conceivably appear not very far down the road, perhaps even later this year.

"We had more scripts prepared when we heard from NBC that they wanted to stop," says Wells. "We could be back up and ready to shoot in a couple of months at this point.

"But that's really their decision about what they would like to see and when they need it."

Today's cuppa: English breakfast tea

On Thursday, Jan. 7, VH1 premieres the third season of "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew," a reality series in which internist and addiction-medicine specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky treats the participants at his in-patient facility in Pasadena, Calif.

Of course, Dr. Pinsky (in photo, right) doesn't work alone. Among his most valuable assistants is drug counselor Bob Forrest (in photo, left), a hat-wearing musician who takes a no-nonsense approach to helping addicts break through their walls of denial and self-delusion.

On this particular day in the fall of 2009, Forrest is in a common area of an upscale housing development in Playa Vista, Calif., which is standing in for a rehab facility. He's acting as a consultant to the then-NBC police drama "Southland," which, after a sudden cancellation, makes its TNT premiere on Jan. 12 with episodes that have already premiered on NBC.

This particular episode, in which Officers John Cooper (Michael Cudlitz) and Ben Sherman (Ben McKenzie, right) visit an addicted colleague (C. Thomas Howell), will air sometime in or after March, when as-yet-unseen episodes begin on TNT.

Asked about the idea of an addicted police officer, Forrest says, "(There are) lots of law-enforcement officers. There are high rates of addiction in any of the thrill-seeking occupations -- the medical profession is the highest rate of addiction in America.

"They save lives. They're going to change the world, so the motivation that gets you into an occupation like that is similar to law enforcement."

According to Forrest, addiction among law enforcement is more often alcohol than drugs.

"It's alcohol, always," he says. "They do abide by their ethics, but they're hard, hard drinkers. ... I've treated more cops than celebrities. I hope the LAPD doesn't mind, but it's all the different PDs. There's an intensity. You get the endorphin rush; you get the adrenaline; everything is on high alert.

"Soldiers are coming back now with this high rate of addiction. They report to me, because I have counseled a couple of people who've come back from Iraq. 'Bob, yesterday doesn't exist.' That's the greatest line I ever heard from an addict of this type -- law enforcement, prison guards and soldiers -- yesterday doesn't exist, because today is the day you could get killed.

"I think policemen think like that, too. I have another policeman, who was a homicide detective for 20 years, who said, 'I've seen more death than anything.' He had retired. He'd been a heavy drinker, then he retired and just became a drink-to-the-death guy. And he turned around. He's doing all right.

"Where there's breath, there's hope, I always say, and this is an accurate portrayal."

Unlike his purely advisory role on "Southland," Forrest appears on-camera in "Celebrity Rehab," and sometimes that's a challenge.

"You can't curse a lot," he says. "I'm always with Drew. He's so articulate. I cuss a lot when I'm on my own. Drew's a real steadying influence in my life. When I first started to work for him -- because I worked with musicians, where you can really say or do anything you want -- and he wanted me to work at the hospital with him.

"He said, 'Just be you. Just do what you were doing at MusiCares, and just be you. I'll back you up.' And I'm like, 'OK.' I'm cussing, and I'm saying all these outlandish things. After about three weeks, 'Did you say ...', whatever it was, 'I don't give a f--k whether you get sober or not,' I think I said to a patient, just to shock them. It's all for value. It has clinical value.

"I said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'Bob, there's a difference between pushing the envelope and not even considering that there is one.' And he just slammed my door. That's the maddest he's ever gotten."

(Photo at right, from the right, Season Three participants Heidi Fleiss, Mackenzie Phillips and Lisa D'Amato. Participants not shown are Tom Sizemore, Dennis Rodman, Mindy McCready, Mike Starr and Joey Kovar.)

Asked what's particular about celebrity addiction, Forrest says, "The only two industries I've ever been in are show business and the helping business. What happens with the helping business -- people become psychologists because they think it's going to solve their problems.

"In show business, I think a lot of people want love. The Anna Nicole Smiths of the world, they think that being in show business, they will then feel loved. There's no way to feel loved but to work on having an internal world that feels love and doesn't need applause or anything like that.

"The psychologists who get into it and want to solve their own problems, can't solve their own problems. It's very similar. Plus, the idea was, I was a singer, so it was always about how much you draw and how many records you sell. One guy told me years ago, 'It's butts in seats, that's what matters.'

"And so, then, now, I'm in the recovery industry, and it's really heads on beds."