Rubicon

69
Metascore
2010-2010
1 season
AMC
Suspense, Drama
TV-14

Will Travers is an analyst at a New York City-based federal intelligence agency who is thrown into a story where nothing is as it appears to be.

69
Metascore
2010-2010
1 season
AMC
Suspense, Drama
TV-14

Will Travers is an analyst at a New York City-based federal intelligence agency who is thrown into a story where nothing is as it appears to be.

Where Does AMC Go From Here?

AMC is at a crossroads. Although the cable network's successes in 2013 are hard to ignore — Breaking Bad ended its landmark run to critical raves and an astounding 400-plus percent growth in total viewers,  and The Walking Dead remained TV's top-rated drama with a Season 4 premiere that drew 16 million sets of eyeballs — the network faced its share of setbacks. A resurrected third season of The Killing earned better reviews, but it was canceled (again) after failing to deliver an audience (it's since been revived again by Netflix). Worse, freshman drama Low Winter Sun was utterly rejected by viewers despite being paired with Bad's successful final run.Winter TV: Get scoop on your favorite returning showsThe truth is, AMC...

Fri, Jan 10, 2014

Rubicon Alum Christopher Evan Welch Dies at 48

Rubicon alum Christopher Evan Welch died on Monday, Deadline.com reports. He was believed to be 48.   Welch...

Tue, Dec 3, 2013

Rubicon Alum Christopher Evan Welch Dies at 48

Homeland Producer Henry Bromell Dies at 66

Homeland producer Henry Bromell died Monday of a heart attack, Deadline reports. He was 66.

Tue, Mar 19, 2013

Homeland Producer Henry Bromell Dies at 66

Weekend TV Review: Hunted, Hitchcock's Girl, Showtime Showstoppers and More

Remember the old X-Files mantra "Trust No One?" One of its producers surely does, and in creating the new Cinemax spy thriller Hunted, Frank Spotnitz makes it clear from the first scenes that you can't always trust your eyes, either. "At least...

Fri, Oct 19, 2012

Weekend TV Review: Hunted, Hitchcock's Girl, Showtime Showstoppers and More

Good Wife Alum Dallas Roberts Joins The Walking Dead

A new face is coming to The Walking Dead next season. Dallas Roberts (The Good Wife, Rubicon) has been cast in the role of...

Tue, Aug 21, 2012

Good Wife Alum Dallas Roberts Joins The Walking Dead

AMC Renews The Killing for Season 2

Get ready for a lot more killing: AMC has renewed The Killing for a second season, TVGuide.com has confirmed. AMC's adaptation of the Danish series stars Mireille Enos and Joe Kinnaman as detectives trying to track down...

Mon, Jun 13, 2011

Hawaii Five-0 Adding a New Series Regular --- Cast It!

Can you imagine Lone Star's James Wolk or Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff under the Hawaii Five-0 sun, playing an old CIA buddy of McGarrett's? It could happen. A new casting notice says the CBS drama is looking to add a series regular to tentatively debut in the 17th episode of the season, TVGuide.com has learned. According to the official casting call, the character will be...

Wed, Dec 1, 2010

Hawaii Five-0 Adding a New Series Regular --- Cast It!

The Biz: Cable's Hits and Misses

As time goes on, more viewers will no longer know the difference between broadcast and cable networks (just ask Conan O'Brien). The disparity in ratings is disappearing, too. Here are the channels that provided the big ratings successes — and busts — of 2010...

Tue, Nov 30, 2010

Poll: Which Canceled Show Deserves More Time?

Unfortunately, even promising television sometimes gets the ax. Intricate, intelligent writing didn't keep AMC from crossing off Rubicon, and Huge's witty teen dialogue and emotional depth failed to win a huge audience. Not even super producer JJ Abrams or the combined star power of Maura Tierney and Rob Morrow could rescue Undercovers or The Whole Truth, respectively. So we ask: Which of these canceled shows deserves more time? Vote after the jump...

Mon, Nov 29, 2010

Poll: Which Canceled Show Deserves More Time?

Matt's TV Week in Review

This was a week dominated by the Coco Express (and the launch of Conan took some of my focus off prime time this week, so this will be a more selective roundup). Let's start there.Want more Matt Roush? Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine now!LATE NIGHT WITH COCO: If Conan O'Brien keeps creeping earlier and earlier onto the schedule with each step of his career (from 12:30 to 11:30 and now to 11/all times ET), eventually he'll be ready for prime time. But not really. As I noted in my insta-reaction to Conan's opening night, the move to basic cable (feeding nicely into Conan's self-mocking persona) is the equivalent of going from Broadway to off-Broadway. Ergo the hipster beard. Being the underdog suits Conan, and while his explosive opening ratings quickly came down to earth, it's clear that a significant slice of the younger fan base is thrilled to see this funky and deeply silly Irish folk hero of TV comedy get back in the game...

Fri, Nov 12, 2010

AMC Cancels Rubicon

AMC just sent Rubicon a four-leaf clover: The critically lauded-but-low-rated conspiracy thriller will not be renewed for a second season, the network announced Thursday.Exclusive: Rubicon boss makes a case for second season"Rubicon gave us an opportunity to tell a rich and compelling story, and we're proud of the series," AMC said in a statement. "This was not an easy decision, but we are grateful to have had the opportunity to work with such a phenomenally talented and dedicated team."The series told the story of intelligence analyst Will Travers...

Thu, Nov 11, 2010

Exclusive: Rubicon Boss Makes a Case for Second Season

From the beginning, AMC's Rubicon was a slow burn.Although the show eventually won the approval of many critics, the show's pacing and complicated conspiracy storytelling resulted in a very small — but passionate — viewership, leading to the assumption that last week's Season 1 finale would double as a series finale.Rubicon: Conspiracy or commentary? "Democracy is a very fragile vessel," producer saysBut based on how that episode ended, executive producer Henry Bromell didn't get the memo. American Policy Institute analyst Will Travers (James Badge Dale) finally gathered enough evidence to suggest that his boss, Truxton Spangler (Michael Cristofer), was using API intelligence to manipulate world events for profit. And though Will was convinced Truxton was behind the explosion of an oil tanker in the Gulf of Mexico that could create war with Iran, Will was unable to take Truxton down."I just don't believe in wrapping it up that simply," Bromell tells TVGuide.com...

Sat, Oct 23, 2010

Exclusive: Rubicon Boss Makes a Case for Second Season

Cheers & Jeers: Debra Winger Gets the VIP Treatment

Cheers to In Treatment for coaxing Debra Winger into therapy.Want more Cheers & Jeers? Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine.The Oscar-nominated Terms of Endearment costar has worked infrequently in recent years, which makes her the perfect choice to play a stage diva who's making a comeback after a long time out of the spotlight on the new season of Gabriel Byrne's HBO shrink-rap serial (starting October 25). Aside from a guest gig as a school principal on the final season of Law & Order and her role as the mother...

Fri, Oct 22, 2010

Cheers & Jeers: Debra Winger Gets the VIP Treatment

Cheers & Jeers: Rubicon Wraps It Up --- For Now

Cheers to Rubicon for crossing the finish line in fine style.Want more Cheers & Jeers? Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine now!The first season of AMC's conspiracy thriller ended with a relatively action-packed episode that answered some key questions while leaving others hanging. James Badge Dale's intelligence analyst Will Travers finally put together all the pieces of the puzzle to determine how API, his thinktank, had manipulated tragic world events for profit and confronted one of the masterminds behind the plan, Truxton Spangler (the brilliantly chilling Michael Cristofer). Meanwhile, Will's ex-bedmate, Andy (Annie Parisse), was revealed to be an operative — who was sadly unable to save widow Katherine Rhumor (Miranda Richardson) from being murdered in the middle of Central Park...

Mon, Oct 18, 2010

Cheers & Jeers: Rubicon Wraps It Up --- For Now

Finale Watch: Mad Men, Rubicon

The times, they are always a changin' on Mad Men, but as often happens with this fascinatingly unpredictable series, the changes come where you least expect them. After the last several weeks of intense workplace drama, priming us for another game-changer in the wake of Don Draper's anti-tobacco manifesto, Sunday's thoroughly absorbing and entertaining fourth-season finale takes a startling hairpin turn back to the personal. Cut to the headline: Don's getting married. To Megan!Want more Matt Roush? Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine now!The main action: While Peggy triumphantly lands a new pantyhose account, the first win for the troubled agency since the Lucky Strike defection, Don takes the kids to California, world of Tomorrowland (the episode's title), and has a personal epiphany about his own future — as it relates to his tormented and once-hidden past — in the lovely and toothsome presence of Megan, the ethereal secretary-turned-nanny who is every inch the anti-Betty...

Mon, Oct 18, 2010

Ask Matt: Fringe, Terriers, House, Bones, Fall Malaise and More!

Send questions to askmatt@tvguidemagazine.com and follow me on Twitter!Question: I know that you and many others are loving this season of Fringe with the alt-world, Doublivia high jinks but I am a bit more, shall we say, off-put. One of my problems is that I'm getting a very Charmed vibe about the whole thing. Allow me to explain. I was a devoted Charmed fan (until the unfortunate last season), but one of the staples of that show which always bothered me were the possession/body-swap type episodes. One of the sisters would be overtaken or possessed or swapped out or what have you and the other sisters would take forever and a day to noodle it out. No matter how strangely or out of character they acted, they would sense nothing was amiss until the whole thing blew up in their faces. With Fauxlivia in the mix on our side, I'm getting that familiar feeling of "Really? Come on!" when it comes to the continued obliviousness of the rest of the cast....

Mon, Oct 18, 2010

Ask Matt: Fringe, Terriers, House, Bones, Fall Malaise and More!

Tonight's TV Hot List: Sunday, Oct. 17, 2010

Desperate Housewives9/8c ABC Gaby might have bitten off more than she could easily chew last week when she gave Bob the OK to track down her real daughter. In any event, Carlos certainly thinks so, and you're likely to see if he's right tonight when you meet the Sanchez family. You can also look for the Bree-Renee smackdown over Keith (Brian Austin Green) to intensify; and you'll see Susan in her Va-Va-Broom get-up in places where she won't want anyone, especially Mike, to see her. Mike and Susan are also losing their tenants: Paul Young buys back the house he shared with his late first wife, Mary Alice. — Paul DroeschRead on for previews of Mad Men, Rubicon, Sunday Night Football, Sonny with a Chance, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and Luther.

Sun, Oct 17, 2010

Tonight's TV Hot List: Sunday, Oct. 17, 2010

Matt's Weekend Picks: October 15-17

Smallville (Friday, 8/7c, The CW)My, Clark, how you've grown. The Young Man of Steel marks his milestone 200th episode with an episode sure to please fans. It's partly a nostalgia trip, as Lois urges Clark to attend ...

Thu, Oct 14, 2010

Matt's TV Week in Review: Premiere Week Edition

This week's column is dedicated to the memory of Mrs. Ida Blankenship, Don Draper's hilariously cantankerous executive secretary on Mad Men who died at her desk, "like she lived, surrounded by the people she answers phones for," according to Roger Sterling's snarky instant eulogy. Her former swain/boss Bert Cooper saw a bigger, more admiring picture: "She was born in 1898 in a barn, she died on the 37th floor of a skyscraper. She's an astronaut." Also, according to Roger's apparently unpublishable memoirs, a one-time "queen of perversions." Randee Heller's spot-on performance of this old-school gatekeeper, a relic of a time before feminism was on anyone's radar...

Fri, Sep 24, 2010

Matt's TV Week in Review: Premiere Week Edition

Cheers & Jeers: Rubicon --- Annie, Get Your Gun!

Cheers to Annie Parisse for bringing some much-needed sex appeal to Rubicon.Want more Cheers & Jeers? Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine.AMC's chilly conspiracy serial cast the smoldering actress as Andy, a part-time painter who takes her justifiably paranoid neighbor, intelligence anyalyst Will Travers (James Badge Dale), into her apartment — and her bed...

Mon, Sep 20, 2010

Cheers & Jeers: Rubicon --- Annie, Get Your Gun!

Matt's TV Week in Review

As summer TV begins to hand off to the fall season, some thoughts and observations on a few of the shows and headlines that stood out. Instant Classic TV: I haven't been able to stop thinking about Sunday's episode of Mad Men, regarded by many as the high point of the season to date and a series peak as well, a blistering tour de force for Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss, who now have dynamite entries for their Emmy reel next year. (This season has been particularly strong for Moss, as Peggy Olson comes into her own: partying with bohemians, doffing her clothes to unnerve the chauvinistic new art director, and now standing up to Don.) "The Suitcase," so masterfully penned by Matthew Weiner that it wouldn't be a surprise to see him at the Emmy podium yet again next year, felt like watching a three-act play — or maybe a three-ring circus veering from drama to comedy back to drama, or perhaps an emotional heavyweight bout that went on much longer — and with more actual ferocity — than the legendary Cassius Clay-Sonny Liston rematch knockdown of May 1965.

Fri, Sep 10, 2010

Cheers & Jeers: Dallas Roberts Does Rubicon

Cheers to Rubicon for giving Dallas Roberts a role he can run with.Want more Cheers & Jeers? Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine.The Juilliard-trained actor (who, ironically, is originally from Houston) has spent the summer swiping scenes on AMC's paranoid thriller as American Policy Institute wonk Miles Fiedler. Whether he's flirting with a coworker or fretting over a security breach, Roberts makes his character's squirreliness compelling...

Mon, Sep 6, 2010

Cheers & Jeers: Dallas Roberts Does Rubicon

Rubicon's Rogue Revealed!

There are renaissance men in this world, and then there's Michael Cristofer. He's currently kicking keister on Rubicon as eccentric intelligence czar Truxton Spangler — a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a trench coat — but acting hasn't always been his thing. In fact, Cristofer is way better known as a playwright (he won the Pulitzer Prize and a Tony for "The Shadow Box") and film scribe (The Witches of Eastwick), and he's also an acclaimed director (his HBO movie Gia made Angelina Jolie world famous). Now he's penning his first opera...

Fri, Sep 3, 2010

Matt's Weekend Picks: September 3-5

CAMP ROCK 2: THE FINAL JAM (Friday, 8/7c, Disney Channel) Tween alert! Demi Lovato and the Jonas Brothers are back in a sequel to the 2008 hit TV-movie, which finds the music-oriented Camp Rock threatened by the snooty new Camp Star across the lake. You know what that means — an end-of-summer performance duel to save the camp's reputation and future. A "Rock Along" sing-along version of the movie airs Saturday, and a "Dance Jam" edition airs Sunday, with a making-of look at the dance numbers...

Thu, Sep 2, 2010

Rubicon: Conspiracy or Commentary? "Democracy Is a Very Fragile Vessel," Producer Says

It's a few hours into a June day of shooting on the New York set of AMC's Rubicon. The set is breathlessly quiet, and the show's star, James Badge Dale, is staring at a photograph.The quiet is finally broken when Dale's character, Will Travers, begins jotting down notes on index cards with a Sharpie. That's right: With four episodes of the conspiracy thriller's first season left to shoot, there are no car bombs, no sniper fire, no creepy phone calls — just the squeak of the marker moving over paper.Rubicon's James Badge Dale: "Our show is not for everybody""We're spinning a yarn. We're trying to do something different than what's normally done on television, and it's not going to be for everybody," Dale tells TVGuide.com during a break. "We want to do something subtle. ... We're asking people to sit down and be taken on a ride, albeit not a very fast one...

Sun, Aug 15, 2010

Rubicon: Conspiracy or Commentary? "Democracy Is a Very Fragile Vessel," Producer Says

Ask Matt: True Blood, Work of Art, Friday Night Lights, Mad Men and More

Send questions to askmatt@tvguidemagazine.com and follow me on Twitter!  Question: I have recently discovered True Blood and spent the summer watching seasons 1 and 2. Alan Ball and company did all the right things to get me to invest completely in Bill and Sookie. So much so that now I physically hurt at the thought that things might not work out for them. (Kudos to them for getting that kind of response for fictional characters.) I know that things aren't following the books exactly, which is fine by me, since I haven't read them. However, I am getting a little worried about ...

Mon, Aug 9, 2010

Ask Matt: True Blood, Work of Art, Friday Night Lights, Mad Men and More

Ratings: Rubicon Achieves Biggest Series Premiere in AMC History

The two-hour premiere of AMC's conspiracy thriller Rubicon delivered 2 million viewers Sunday, making it the highest-rated series debut in the network's history.

Mon, Aug 2, 2010

Ratings: Rubicon Achieves Biggest Series Premiere in AMC History

Tonight's TV Hot List: Sunday, Aug. 1, 2010

Rubicon8/7c AMC It's hide-and-seek, cat-and-mouse, cloak-and-dagger goings-on in the vein of Three Days of the Condor. The opening episode is replete with a suicide, a mysterious death and government conspiracies involving a brilliant-but-troubled code-breaking intelligence analyst (James Badge Dale of The Pacific and 24) at a federal agency who finds himself enmeshed in espionage. (A Rubicon, according to the dictionary, is a boundary line that, when crossed, commits a person irrevocably. Well, this intriguing and involving series definitely merits commitment.)Read on for previews of Entourage, the X Games, Top 10 Commercials of 2010, Next Food Network Star, Ultimate Air Jaws and Drop Dead Diva.

Sun, Aug 1, 2010

Tonight's TV Hot List: Sunday, Aug. 1, 2010

Roush Review: Can a Show Be Too Intelligent?

Calling Rubicon a spy thriller is like referring to Crime and Punishment as a murder mystery. Cerebral, chilly and cloaked in languorous foreboding, this morose espionage drama about intelligence data analysts in a government think tank is likely to be championed ...

Fri, Jul 30, 2010

Roush Review: Can a Show Be Too Intelligent?

Matt's Weekend Picks: July 30-August 1

Eureka (Friday, 9/8c, Syfy) Colin Ferguson directs this week's episode, which may explain why Sheriff Carter is off to Harvard to visit Zoe for the week. While he's away, the town celebrates Space Week—but as usual, things go awry. This week's culprit: guest star Jamie Kennedy, whose self-propagating oxygen device begins to affect the atmosphere, threatening to incinerate the put-upon town...

Thu, Jul 29, 2010

Cheers & Jeers: (James) Badge (Dale) of Honor

Cheers to James Badge Dale for pulling a double shift on a pair of top-rank cable dramas. Having recently wrapped his run as PFC Robert Leckie in HBO's stirring World War II miniseries The Pacific, Badge Dale has reported for duty as intelligence analyst Will Travers on AMC's intriguing new headscratcher Rubicon. As a widower still grieving over the loss of his wife and child in 9/11, he brings warmth to a series that could be a chilly homage to paranoid '70s thrillers like The Conversation and The Parallax View.

Mon, Jul 26, 2010

Cheers & Jeers: (James) Badge (Dale) of Honor

AMC to Preview Rubicon After Breaking Bad Finale

AMC will offer viewers a sneak peek at its new original series Rubicon immediately following the season finale of Breaking Bad on Sunday, June 13 at 11/10c. AMC sets premiere dates for Mad Men, Rubicon Rubicon stars James Badge Dale (The Pacific) as Will Travers, an analyst at a...

Tue, Jun 8, 2010

AMC to Preview Rubicon After Breaking Bad Finale