Before there was “Nip/Tuck” and “Rescue Me,” cable’s FX Network was hurled toward legitimacy by its first original series, “The Shield.”

Reaching new heights for original cable programming, “The Shield” was the first ad-supported cable series to win a Golden Globe for best drama, and the first to earn Emmy nominations for writing and directing.

The drama, a twisted look at a dysfunctional police division in Los Angeles that star Michael Chiklis calls “deliciously wrong,” has garnered a tremendously loyal fan base and ranks among the five most-watched cable shows.

More heads are sure to turn with Emmy-winner and five-time Oscar nominee Glenn Close joining the cast as Capt. Monica Rawling.

The fourth season premieres at 10 p.m. Tuesday on FX (check listings for channel information).

Rawling comes on at a time of transition in “the barn,” the Farmington division’s headquarters that is filled with scheming cops who routinely blur the line between good and bad, right and wrong.

Last season left Detective Vic Mackey, played by Emmy-winner Chiklis, in limbo after his strike team was disbanded, and Capt. David Aceveda (Benito Martinez) was leaving his post after winning a seat on the City Council.

The former members of the strike team, which had drowned in the world of theft and drugs, have moved on to new jobs, but still maintain resentment and ever-so-questionable ethics.

Meanwhile Detective Claudette Wyms, played by two-time Emmy nominee CCH Pounder, is bitter at the world because she didn’t get the captain’s post and she’s being blocked out of major cases because she got herself on the district attorney’s bad side.

“We’re starting all over fresh,” Pounder said in series materials. “Everybody has got a chance to slay somebody this time.”

All this as Close’s Rawling enters the fold with a controversial new plan to counter gang and drug activity in the area.

“(The characters) have all lived so much,” executive producer Scott Brazil said in a promotional interview. “If you’ve invested in them in the past and you’re a regular viewer of ‘The Shield’ it just gets richer and richer.

“If you’re new to ‘The Shield’ and your entree is Glenn Close … you won’t be let down.”

He’s right.

The show’s quirky side is still intact, as we see in the opening moments of the new season.

A rookie cop helping serve an arrest warrant winds up shooting a dog that has clamped onto his leg. To save the youngster from the ire of the assistant chief, who has a firm policy against shooting dogs, Mackey and friends put a gun near the dog’s paw before the assistant chief arrives.

“It was kill or be killed,” one cop says.

If you’ve missed the first three seasons, it’s a fine time to jump on board as the show matures and turns its focus on the characters.

Close’s entrance brings a fresh and dramatic twist to a show that was already fresh and dramatic and helps further establish FX’s position in original programming.

In addition to “The Shield,” “Nip/Tuck” and “Rescue Me,” the network is preparing to launch a new documentary series by Morgan Sperlock, the brains behind the hit documentary film “Super Size Me,” called “30 Days.”

Also, the network’s first scripted comedy shows, “Starved” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” and the highly anticipated new series, “Over There,” a fictionalized look at soldiers’ lives in Iraq by Steven Bochco (“NYPD Blue” and “L.A. Law”), could come by the end of summer.

Don’t be afraid to move up that dial.

Columnist Victor Balta: 425-339-3455 or vbalta@heraldnet.com.