AMC’s LOW WINTER SUN – Mark Strong, James Ransone to Star

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Some reports demand to be written, even if only a fraction of your audience gets why. The announcement that Mark Strong may be reprising his role from Low Winter Sun in an AMC adaptation of the hit British crime series is one of those reports. Knowing that the most discerning source of quality cable crime TV is pairing with a surefire hit story gets me bolt upright.

Here’s the score on Low Winter Sun: Mark Strong played the centerpiece in this gutting tale of dirty cops, mortal secrets and warring underworlds. It hit back in ’06, rocked British wigs, and then faded out.

Now AMC, true to the form it established by ganking The Killing out of Sweden, snatched up this hot foreign property. And it wants Mark Strong along with it.

Even from a channel that brought us Breaking Bad and Mad Men, few better creative decisions have been made. Along with it was the similarly righteous call to cast James Ransone as the Detroit underboss that runs afoul of Strong’s crooked lawman.

I can sum up the excellence that is Ransone to you fans of The Wire out there in a single word: Ziggy. Ziggy will be the Big Bad in Low Winter Sun. And pay heed, noir fans – he’s set against a similarly vicious Big Bad in the form of Mark Strong’s Frank Agnew, homicidal homicide detective who kills one of his brothers in blue and spends the series trying to bury that fact.

So who’s this Mark Strong guy, then? One of the most brutal members of the “oh that guy” club. He’s a character actor when actors with the character of a nine-iron in the face are needed. Strong’s so intense that every scene with him is a double-punch to your eye holes.

Add it up, and AMC has made Christmas come early for the crime TV fans, yet again. They, like the grim intensity of Mark Strong and James Ransone, is a crazy gift that keeps on giving.

Watch for Low Winter Sun to open the 2013 season if our luck holds up.