Who's the Boss?

LOS ANGELES - In the opening five minutes of the new TV drama "Boss," Chicago Mayor Tom Kane, played by Kelsey Grammer, barely utters more than two sentences, but director Gus Van Sant's shaky camera sticks with his face as the news sinks in that he has a terminal brain disease. It's a subtle, yet powerful piece of acting that manages to set up the series' grim tone. It also makes Frasier Crane disappear.

The sequence "is going to wipe the slate clean," according to the show's creator, Farhad Safinia. "You know when you have crew members go up to him and literally shake his hand after certain takes that this is a remarkable piece of work."

Kane is about as different as you can get from a supersensitive, flustered psychiatrist. He's a powerhouse manipulator, so intent on maintaining his political grip that he perceives his drug-addicted daughter as a liability and cuts her out of his life. He's willing to double-cross allies and hold up the State Senate to get his way. He's prone to fiery speeches and intimidation that make Tony Soprano look like a grade-school bully by comparison.

Grammer goes so far as to compare his character to Iago, one of Shakespeare's most despicable villains.

"He's a man of power, accustomed to power," he said. "He'll go kicking and screaming on his way down toward hell."

Grammer, who has won five Emmys, has played evil before, most notably as the scheming Sideshow Bob on "The Simpsons," but this is his most dramatic departure. It's one he insists he couldn't have pulled off in 2004, right after the end of "Frasier."

"I think it would have been too much of a jolt," he said.

"I spent the next several months sort of looking at my own life and deciding that I didn't want to have those stories be my last stories," said Grammer, who launched his career in regional theater and eventually wound up doing Shakespeare on Broadway. "It was time to make changes that involved my career as well as my personal life.

"Doing a drama started to make really good sense, because it took me back to my roots."

Taking a cue from HBO

Grammer isn't the only one taking risks.

The show is airing on Starz, a premium cable channel that has never had a full slate of original programming. That started to change when former HBO chairman Chris Albrecht came on board in 2009. He added loud, epic series such as "Spartacus" and "Torchwood."

But "Boss" could be a game changer, much like "Mad Men" put AMC on the map. It's the first show in the network's history that feels like an Emmy contender. Its political intrigue, rich dialogue and dense storytelling would feel right at home on AMC, Showtime or, yes, HBO.

It's just the beginning. Starz has built the largest set ever in Florida for "Magic City," a series set in a Miami hotel in the 1950s that's scheduled to premiere early next year. The team behind "Spartacus" is developing "Noir," which is set in 1960s Paris. And Albrecht has already signed off on a second season of "Boss," an almost unprecedented sign of support before the premiere even airs.

"Our goal is to put a full slate of original programming on the air that feels distinctive, that people want to pay for," Albrecht said. "We're new in it and we're going to add and subtract aggressively until we feel we have the right mix."

It's too soon to tell if the gamble will pay off. But Grammer already feels like a winner.

"The discovery of this man as I work through him has been a discovery of things I've never done or said before," he said. "Creatively, it's probably the greatest time of my life."