Law & Order returned for its eighteenth season with two episodes last night. As producer Dick Wolf is wont to do, things on the show have changed. The cast changes have definitely skewed things younger and has made the show seem more like Law & Order: The Next Generation. Which isn't a bad thing, since it seemed more like a natural evolution. And don’t worry, we won’t reveal the endings of the episodes in......

Former District Attorney Arthur Branch - a.k.a. former Senator Fred Thompson - came back to New York City to speak at a NY State Conservative Party event. He made clear he's really conservative, saying, "Some think the way to beat the Democrats next year is to be more like them. I could not disagree more. My friends, I suggest it's not time for psychological flexibilities in terms of our principles. That's the surefire way of......

Fred Thompson was never an actual Manhattan District Attorney, he just played one TV. He used the same medium to announce that he was running for President by pursuing the Republican nomination Wednesday night on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Unlike California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who announced his gubernatorial candidacy by appearing on The Tonight Show in person, Thompson made his announcement via a taped message that Leno aired. Speculation about the possibility of......

This might be the first time a British actor has played a Law & Order regular: Linus Roache will be playing the new Executive District Attorney. (Sam Waterston's Jack McCoy is getting a promotion to DA, since Fred Thompson has left the show to pursue a presidential campaign.) We foresee sexual tension between his character and Alana de la Garza's Connie Rubirosa! Is it a coincidence that Roache is the second star from short-lived NBC......

Now that Law & Order has been renewed for four more seasons, shakeups to the cast have been expected. And the most notable one is that Fred Thompson, who plays District Attorney Arthur Branch, is leaving the show to pursue a presidential campaign. We hope the writers work that in! Law & Order producer Dick Wolf said, "I've spoken to Fred today, and although he told me he has not made a firm decision about......

Gothamist knew that someday Law & Order will filter to the highest levels of government. We just didn't figure that it would be in this way: Fred Thompson, who plays District Attorney Arthur Branch, has agreed to be an adviser to President Bush for the Supreme Court justice selection process. Apparently, one term in the Senate and a role on America's longest running cop-and-lawyer show can launch you into guiding one of the most important......

The folks at the Observer outdid themselves this week: Gothamist nearly choked on our breakfast when we saw the illustration of 85 year-old Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau on the homepage. The picture accompanies a story about Morgenthau's potentially tough reelection this fall, after thirty years as D.A. (and the story is called "Is Morgy Cyborgy?"), and his efforts to reach out to voters, like going to clubs like XL to meet his supporters. Morgenthau......

Dick Wolf, you sly, sly dog. Who knew that Elisabeth "Lumberyard 'cause I'm So Wooden" Rohm's last episode of Law & Order" href="http://www.nbc.com/Law_&_Order/index.html">Law & Order would be so memorable? District Attorney Arthur Branch basically fired ADA Serena Southerlyn's ass because she was too passionate and not enough fact-focused. As Southerlyn, Rohm looked as shocked as she could, and then said, "Is this because I'm a lesbian?" Hello! Gothamist was sort of hoping that Southerlyn would......

Take an old school district attorney and an upstart assistant D.A. with other ambitions, set them in the biggest borough of the country's biggest city, inflate egos accordingly, and you've got the best look inside what happens in a NYC DA's office since...yes, Law & Order! The case of former assistant district attorney and novelist Robert Reuland versus Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes (right) stems from Reuland's "forced" resignation in 2001, with Reuland claiming that his......

Gothamist is still trying to get to the bottom of the Law & Order episode that Mayor Bloomberg will be appearing in. Reader Matthew tried to help us out by noting a key paragraph in a Wall Street Journal article about that Martha Stewart thing: Just blocks from the courthouse, yellow police tape blocked off the crime scene of an armored-car robbery, a dead body and swarming investigators -- all part of the set......

One for the Yankees haters: The Post reports that Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office was asked to look into Yankees tickets given tickets to Manhattan Executive DA Robert Morgenthau. According to the State Lobbying Commission, no organization "shall offer or give a gift with a value in excess of $75 to any public official" which means that the Yankees could face criminal prosecution, with violations punishable by up to a year in jail. The Yankees......