The Black Donnellys is an American drama television series that debuted on NBC on February 26, 2007, and last aired on May 14, 2007. The Black Donnellys was created by Paul Haggis and Robert Moresco and starred Jonathan Tucker, Olivia Wilde, Billy Lush, Tom Guiry, Kirk Acevedo, Michael Stahl-David, and Keith Nobbs. The series follows four young Roman Catholic Irish-American brothers in New York City's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood and their involvement with petty and organized crime, specifically the Irish Mob. Set in the present day, the show draws heavily upon Irish-American history and themes of family and loyalty. The pilot episode illustrates a clear tension and rivalry between Irish and Italians. The episodes are narrated by a childhood friend, Joey "Ice Cream", whom the show depicts as an unreliable narrator. In creating the show, Haggis, a native of London, Ontario, strongly referenced his hometown's local history about the real-life Black Donnellys and the massacre associated with their name. In the pilot episode, Joey says the neighborhood is populated primarily by "Black Irish", whom he calls "a race of dark-haired people" the Celts had failed to wipe out in Ireland. The series portrays Hell's Kitchen as a traditionally working-class neighborhood with a deeply entrenched ethnic Irish population and an Irish Mob with control over illegal gambling and loansharking, and heavy involvement in the unions. On April 9, 2007, the show was pulled from NBC’s primetime line-up. On April 14, the series was officially cancelled, but the remainder of the episodes were made available on the NBC website and on iTunes. On June 5, 2007, it was announced that HDNet had acquired the rights from NBC Universal to broadcast all 13 episodes of the series, beginning June 13, 2007. A DVD collection entitled "The Black Donnellys: The Complete Series" was released on September 4, 2007.

Characters

Cast

Main

Recurring

Production

Producer Bobby Moresco conceived of the series as inspired from his experiences growing up in New York's Hell's Kitchen. Co-creator Paul Haggis also wanted to reference the real-life Black Donnellys, an Irish family from Lucan near his hometown of London, Ontario who were murdered in the 1800s because of ongoing feuds with local residents. Said Haggis, “This black Irish family of low-lifes and criminals was purportedly murdered by a community of good Protestant folks, and everyone covered it up. There were elements of that that I really wanted to be able to infuse into this story, and I think as we wrote, the tragedy of these characters started to bubble up, and more similarities started to come." EZ Streets, a short-lived series Haggis and Moresco had created in 1996, also centered on mob activity and explored similar themes. Haggis and Moresco began developing the idea for The Black Donnellys prior to EZ Streets' cancellation, but did not begin to work on the show until March 2006, when their film Crash became nominated for Oscars and they received offers to produce the series. Of the series' Hell's Kitchen setting, Haggis said "we decided to create a fictional neighborhood, and you’ll see that we have elements of Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn, and made it all look like one neighborhood. That seems very similar to what we did with EZ Street in which we took portions in Detroit and Chicago and L.A., and made a city that you couldn’t recognize."

Broadcast

The series was originally set to debut as part of NBC's fall 2006 primetime lineup, but was delayed to January 2007 to relieve ER during its hiatus. ER's fall 2006 ratings proved to be so successful that NBC decided to scrap the hiatus, and The Black Donnellys was subsequently pushed to March 2007. When Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was put on hiatus due to faltering ratings, The Black Donnellys premiered as its mid-season replacement in February 2007.

Episodes

Critical reception

Critics had praise for the cast and the pilot episode in particular. Troy Patterson of Slate wrote, "The next four episodes are nowhere near as patient and controlled as that cinematic pilot, but, man, are they Irish: the wakes, the neon shamrock, the epigraphs from W.B. Yeats and D.P. Moynihan. And the show keeps this magnificent blarney up even as it swipes half its ideas from the playbooks of Scorsese and The Godfather." In Slant Magazine, Emily St. James wrote, "It’s not horribly original stuff, but on basic network television, where the same handful of shots seems to turn up on every show, it feels strikingly fresh." John Leonard of New York called it "accomplished and absorbing television". Criticism was directed at the storytelling and characters, which some described as heavy-handed and too reliant on Irish-American clichés. Writing for Salon, Heather Havrilevsky said "while The Sopranos and Brotherhood make [drama series about organized crime] look easy, The Black Donnellys makes it excruciatingly clear just how difficult it is to tell a soulful story about criminals", adding that among the series’ flaws are its "attempts to make crime seem sort of romantic and cool." Others said the Donnelly brothers were not believable as Irish-American mobsters, with Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe likening the show to "a network version of The Sopranos with pretty boys". The Los Angeles Times Paul Brownfield likened the depiction of Hell's Kitchen to "Scorsese's Creek" and the New York Posts Linda Stasi said it felt anachronistic. Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle said, "It may be that what Moresco and Haggis are after here is a coming-of-age story about how the best intentions of life must take a backseat to family loyalty. But there's so much amiss here in the tone it's hard to tell...It's clear that 'The Black Donnellys' doesn't know what it wants to be. It's damning enough that the show isn't 'The Sopranos' or 'Brotherhood' or even 'EZ Streets.' But until it figures what play to make -- dumb-luck Irish clan struggles to get out of troubles of its own making or young mob family forced to find its way -- viewers won't know what to make of it." Jonathan Tucker’s performance received praise, with Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune saying he "manages to give the lead brother, Tommy, a compellingly mournful aura despite the show’s thin writing" and Gilbert commenting he makes "Tommy's moral struggle palpable". Gilbert added, "As the temperamental brother Jimmy, who undoes any peace that Tommy builds in the neighborhood, Tom Guiry has a Sean Penn-like intensity." On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, season 1 has an approval rating of 40% based on 30 reviews. The site’s critics consensus reads, "The Black Donnellys has Irish swagger to spare and an appealing cast, but the series' overreliance on signature tropes of better mob stories only underscores its lack of authenticity and imagination."

Home media

The Black Donnellys: The Complete Series was released on DVD on September 4, 2007. The set contains all 13 episodes, including the 7 unaired episodes.

International broadcasters