May 14, 2007
Law & Order: Four More Years
Chung chung! NBC and producer Dick Wolf have hashed out a deal to keep Law & Order on the air for the next four years. Variety reports (subscription only) that as part of the deal, Law & Order: Criminal Intent will be moving to USA. Yes, USA (which NBC owns) will now have the first run episodes of Detective Robert Goren's histrionics, and then NBC will air repeats of L&O:CI. Interesting!
NBC Universal head Jeff Zucker said, "Putting 'Criminal Intent' originals on USA was the centerpiece of this whole thing. The fact that originals will air on USA serves to make USA an even stronger and more dominant channel. It propels USA into a new stratosphere above where they already were, and into the big leagues with ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox. It starts to make USA the fifth major network." In other words, he wants advertisers on USA to pay more money.
The original Law & Order has struggled in the ratings in this CSI-crazy world (and since being pushed to Friday nights), prompting speculation that NBC would try to put the longest running drama on TV today on the ice. But now the show, in its 17th season, will have a shot at overtaking Gunsmoke as the longest running drama. Variety says Wolf negotiated a lower licensing fee for L&O, and he said:
My stated objective when this whole thing started was to find a way to bring all three shows back. Now all three are back with full season orders. Everyone stays employed...It's unclear what night of the week L&O:CI will be on USA. And this isn't NBC's first foray into repurposing shows from its cable brethren: One summer, it showed episodes of Queer Eye of the Straight Guy. We're surprised it hasn't tried to put Project Runway on prime time....We're operating what was an extremely efficient operation"Now it's being ratcheted up to extremely efficient operation. No one could run the 17th season of a show for what we've been making them. We're just now going from three sodas to water now.
Law & Order will film its 400th (!) episode next season. We were watching part of TNT's L&O marathon yesterday and now believe that in order for L&O to remain relevant, the show needs to revisit the heights of its late 1990s/early 2000s writing. For instance, that three-episode arc that involved the death of a studio exec (with guest star Lauren Graham as another executive interested in Benjamin Bratt and Janeane Garofalo as an assistant) was riveting, especially with DA Adam Schiff pissed off to no end.
Photograph of a trailer for "Dr. Olivet," aka Carolyn McCormack, by Triborough on Flickr
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Goren's first name is Robert.
I think its time to can Law and Order. The dead horse has been beaten, sodomized, and raped so much these past years that its been depleted of any and all interesting story lines. The spin offs didn’t help, but added to the cheesiness factor at an exponential rate. At least with Homicide: Life on the streets they knew when it was time to end it, and they ended that show on a good note.
The madness must stop.
Is it just me, or has L&O been running out of gas for about a year or so now?
But then tons (perhaps the majority) of New York theater actors would be out of guaranteed television exposure. Seriously, I think every actor in NYC has been on at least one of the L&O shows once.
Chung chung? trying to get your last name in there? everybody who watches L O knows it's "DUN DUN". What a Poseur
Doink doink? Thoink thoink? But I will say I have taken Chung Chung from the fine folks at Television Without Pity.
www.gothamist.com/2004/03/11/chung_chung.php
I wonder what Vincent D'Onofrio thinks of the move. Will he buy into being a USA Network marquee player, or will he feel cast aside and turn back into Gomer Pyle (FMJ, not Jim Nabors)?
zucker is on crack if he thinks USA is a 5th major network. they might as well rename it the law and order channel since thats pretty much all they ever show with an occasional 3rd rate movie hacked into 50 pieces by commercials thrown in there.
Where are the fact-checkers?
NBC >has
Can they at least bring back Wings and News Radio to replace some of the law and order shows on USA?
excellent!
Excellent!
Yay. Love when my comments are cut off.
NBC has already aired Project Runway episodes on network prime-time. (Most recently: a few episodes from Season 3 last July)
Thanks, Michael, but has NBC put first-run Project Runway episodes on? I know they've done the repeats (I think).