Mister Sterling

Mister Sterling
Format	Political serial drama
Created by	Lawrence O'Donnell
Starring	Josh Brolin Audra McDonald William Russ David Noroña James Whitmore Chandra West
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	10
Production
Executive producer(s)	Michael Dinner Jim Hart Jeff Melvoin Lawrence O'Donnell
Producer(s)	Bernadette Joyce Garry A. Brown Sandy Frank Andrea Newman Chip Vucelich William Bradley
Running time	60 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	NBC
Original run	02011-01-10 January 10 – March 14, 2003 (2003-03-14)

Mister Sterling is an American television serial drama created by Lawrence O'Donnell that ran from January to March in 2003. It starred Josh Brolin as an idealistic United States Senator, and featured Audra McDonald, William Russ, David Noroña, and James Whitmore as members of his staff. Despite mostly positive reviews, the show, which aired on NBC on Friday nights, was cancelled after 10 episodes after the show only ranked 58th in the yearly ratings (9.83 million viewers, 6.7/12 rating/share)

Although it had numerous similarities to The West Wing in style and tone (especially the show's idealistic attitude towards politics), it was not set in the same universe as O'Donnell's other political show. It is unknown if a cross-over would have ever occurred had Mister Sterling not been cancelled; however Steven Culp played presidential aspirant Sen. Ron Garland on Mister Sterling and House Speaker Jeff Haffley on The West Wing, and Democrats appeared to be in the majority in the US Senate on Mr Sterling, while in The West Wing consistent Republican control of both Houses of Congress was a key plot point.

James Whitmore was nominated for a 2003 Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for playing former Governor Bill Sterling, the senator's father.

The series was produced by Bernadette Joyce, co-producer; Garry A. Brown, co-producer; Michael Dinner, co-executive producer; Sandy Frank, co-producer; Jim Hart, co-executive producer; Jeff Melvoin, co-executive producer; Andrea Newman, producer; Lawrence O'Donnell, executive producer; Chip Vucelich, co-producer; William Bradley, consulting producer.

Characters

Main article: List of characters from Mister Sterling

References

• "Testing Our Mettle", review by Andrew Stuttaford, National Review, January 31, 2003
• "Mister Sterling", reviewed by Ken Tucker, Entertainment Weekly, January 17, 2003
• "Sterling silver" by Heather Havrilesky, Salon.com Magazine, February 27, 2003

"Nielsen's TOP 156 Shows for 2002-03" Google, May 20, 2003

External links

• Mister Sterling at the Internet Movie Database
• Mister Sterling at TV.com