• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 3 hours ago

When it lost the NBA, Warner-owned TNT reportedly adopted a strategy that would reposition it as a destination for original drama.

A new TNT push for scripted shows was reported in summer 2024 as the NBA on TNT was heading into its final season, 2024-25.

So far, the drama strategy has yielded two shows. The first one was “The Librarians: The Next Chapter,” an updated reboot of “The Librarians.”

The second new drama series premieres Sunday, an eight-episode, limited-action series about the capture of Saddam Hussein. The show, “High Value Target: The Hunt for Saddam,” premieres Sunday night on TNT.

The original “Librarians” was a fantasy-adventure franchise that began in 2004 with a series of made-for-TNT movies and then a regular series that ran from 2014 to 2018, also on TNT.

The first season of “The Librarians: The Next Chapter” premiered in May 2025. Season Two premiered last month.

With “High Value Target,” TNT has upped the ante on action.

Set in 2003, the series follows the effort to find and capture Saddam Hussein after the invasion of U.S. forces toppled the dictator’s regime. After his ouster, he eluded capture and went missing.

The miniseries opens in March 2003, just before Hussein was toppled in April. The hunt for Hussein then began, with the CIA and other intelligence agencies charged with taking the lead to find him.

At the center of the show’s story is a CIA analyst and researcher named John Nixon, played by Joel Kinnaman.

The real Nixon was the agency’s go-to expert on the subject of Saddam Hussein. After Hussein’s capture in December 2003, Nixon became the first American to interrogate him. Hussein is played by Waleed Zuaiter (above photo).

Nixon wrote a book about his experiences, Debriefing the President: The Interrogation of Saddam Hussein, published in 2018.

The miniseries is “inspired” by the book, says TNT -- which is publicity-speak for taking liberties with aspects of the story, perhaps in an effort to punch them up.

Whatever the case, “High Value Target” is a high-value miniseries. If it was punched-up from the source material, then the punching-up resulted in an action-packed thriller of a series.

It is true that we have seen re-creations of the street-by-street, house-by-house fighting that characterized the Iraq War in numerous TV shows and movies. These sequences in “High Value Target” are particularly well-choreographed. 

In the show, Nixon is portrayed as a contrarian on the CIA team assigned to finding Hussein. He has studied Hussein for his entire career. 

So, when some on the team express certainty about where Hussein is likely hiding, Nixon says no, they’re wrong.

This puts him on the outs with most of his colleagues, but in the end, he’s the one who gets to talk to the deposed dictator first.

The NBA stood at the top of the TNT Sports food chain for more than three decades before TNT lost the rights. TNT still retains a slew of sports rights, though, including the NHL, NCAA March Madness, various college football games, U.S. soccer, NASCAR and some golf.

Like other basic cable channels, however, TNT’s day-to-day content consists mostly of old, sliced and diced theatrical movies and off-network police procedurals such as “Cold Case.”

The last time TNT made a push into original drama was in the 2010s, with shows such as “Animal Kingdom,” “Claws” and “The Alienist.” 

That era came and went. And then TNT lost the NBA. So, what does the TNT brand stand for now? 

“High Value Target: The Hunt for Saddam,” premieres with its first two episodes Sunday night (Sept. 13) starting at 9 Eastern on TNT. Three more episodes will air Monday night (Sept. 14) starting at 9 on TNT. The remaining three episodes will air singly on three consecutive Sundays -- Sept. 21, Sept. 28 and the finale on Oct. 4.