One of my favorite summer series, The Closer is returning to Television this week, Mondays at 9pm on TNT to be exact. I spoke with Michael Paul Chan who plays Det. Lt. Mike Tao. I joked that he’s the show’s “exposition” guy. Whenever we need background on a suspect, Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) goes to Tao. There was an episode in the 2nd season where they even made a joke about it. Chan has a very impressive career, you may not know his name, but you will probably recognize his face. The phone interview was short and to the point, there was a lot that he couldn’t talk about, but I did get some tidbits.
- Power is the theme of this season. It’s about people who have it or want to get it.
- We will meet Mrs Tao this season. Michael wouldn’t tell me who plays her. But he did say that we will get to know more of the crew this season.
- The relationship between Brenda and her staff are going to get strained again.
- The Closer isn’t a serialized show, so there won’t be any overarching stories again this year.
- The cast rehearses in the mornings and it takes up to 13 hours to film five minutes.
- He does have a lot of input into his character’s basic development. The decision for Tao to be an early backer of Brenda’s was his.
- Brenda and Taylor’s battles will heat up again this year.
- Brenda and Fritz are still together.
- To prepare for his role Michael took weapons training and went to detective school. He said he feels like he has all the tools to be a real detective if he wanted to.
- Surfer and build bicycles and motorcycles anything to keep movie
Don’t forget to be sure to catch The Closer, Mondays at 9pm on TNT. It’s a great show. We’ll be doing weekly recaps starting with this week’s season premiere. The show will run new episodes through August.