Netflix has performed the Christmas miracle of bringing back one of the most acclaimed TV shows of the 21st century, which has been off the air for 13 years now. If examples like Friends, Seinfeld, NCIS, The Office, Suits, and others have taught us anything, it’s that Netflix could be setting up this old show for a whole new era of pop culture relevance.

From the mid-2000s through the early-2010s, The Closer was one of the most popular and acclaimed TV shows on the airwaves. It not only made stars out of its ensemble cast (more on them below), but it also became a milestone prestige project for basic cable programming, earning nominations for Emmys, SAG, and Golden Globes awards every year that it was on the air.

The Closer Was A Unique Police Procedural (With A Perfect Cast)

The Closer was a show that centered around “Deputy Police Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson, former Atlanta police officer and CIA-trained interrogator, is allowed to run her own division of elite officers of the Los Angeles Police Department. Her unusual procedure for obtaining confessions, blatant disregard for politics, and southern accent make her a marked woman. However, with all the bluster and bravado, she still maintains her title, ‘The Closer.’”

The Closer had a spectacular cast, many of whom are much bigger stars now. That list includes J.K. Simmons (Spider-Man, Whiplash), Corey Reynolds (Resident Alien), Michael Paul Chan (U.S. Marshals), Raymond Cruz (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul), Gina Ravera (Kiss the Girls), and Mary McDonnell (Battlestar Galactica), among others. However, it cannot be denied that the entire show hinged on just one actor: series star Kyra Sedgwick.

Over the course of seven seasons of The Closer, Kyra Sedgwick experienced a meteoric rise to the heights of pop-culture popularity – arguably becoming one of (if not the) biggest faces in television for that era. Sedgwick’s Brenda Leigh Johnson hit so many notes that resonated across prime demographics: her Southern drawl and customs appealed to Middle America, while the LA setting and career-woman protagonist played to the Coastal regions. More importantly, The Closer scratched the same itch as Law & Order, while also offering an almost Ally McBeal-style character study of a woman whose professional skill and acumen are often at odds with a messy personal and/or romantic life.

The Closer Changed TV (For the Better)

USA – Netflix

Over seven years, The Closer maintained ratings of 7 million viewers (or better) for every one of its seasonal premiere episodes, and held those same sort of ratings for each one of its season finales (except the first season). To be clear, at the time, that was not only a major accomplishment for a basic cable TV program, but it also set a whole new bar for how the industry viewed and validated basic cable as a content lane. Up until that time, network TV had been cut into two distinct lanes: network TV, which offered the standard sitcoms, procedurals, gameshows and reality series, all restricted by the standards of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Then there were premium cable channels like HBO, which offered the more avant-garde and outright risqué sort of shows that the network could dare to show. It was shows like The Closer that forged the middle path of basic cable, doing “high concept” spins on standard network show formulas – and the landscape of TV was better for it.

Now, the streaming generation can rediscover The Closer, as it’s now available on Netflix.