Musican, author, and all around legendary lady Patti Smith will appear on Law & Order: Criminal Intent tomorrow night. Which is pretty crazy, right? Even if it's certain that by the end of the Law & Order franchise, almost everyone will have appeared on the show. more ›

The Times has a piece on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and it is a sad one: it seems that the show's shortened eight-episode 10th Season may very well be its last. USA has billed it as the "final season," and most of the cast and crew seemed resigned to their fate, though some, such as Kathryn Erbe (who plays Det. Alexandra Eames), are in denial. “To have a show in New York go down is not good for New York...The fact that we managed to do these eight more episodes gives a lot of people eight more episodes of income,” said Vince D'Onofrio, aka Det. Robert Goran. more ›

There's been no lack of mocking headlines and critical jest at Spider-Man: Die Hard With A Vengeance Turn Off The Dark, by far the most expensive tone-deaf musical ever. But no headline has truly made it until it is ripped out, reassembled, and immortalized into a Law & Order plotline. And it seems that Julie Taymor's great folly will be getting its moment in the sun very soon, when Law & Order: Criminal Intent takes on the musical in an upcoming episode. more ›

It took jurors less than five hours long to find "superfan" Charles Nagel guilty of stalking Law and Order: Criminal Intent star Kathryn Erbe. He was found guilty of stalking her over the mail and on the internet, but not guilty of interstate stalking. Nagel probably didn't help his case when he spent five hours on the witness stand earlier this week, pontificating over the nature of his love for Erbe, blaming one of his daughters (who are both named after Batman characters) for doctoring a Facebook photo of Erbe's daughter, and sharing his sexual fantasies involving McDonald's cheeseburgers. more ›

We thought the whole stalking saga of Law & Order: Criminal Intent star Kathryn Erbe was an open and shut creepy-dude-on-the-internet-is-obsessed-with-mid-level-TV-actress case. But the testimony yesterday by superfan Charles Nagel has opened our eyes. See, Nagel was "Internet friends" with Erbe via MySpace, and the two had been trading friendly messages. So you can understand how upset he was when he found out that the account was being run by a teenage imposter! more ›

Actor Roy Scheider died yesterday at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, after battling multiple myeloma for several years and suffering complications from a staph infection. He was 75 and had been living in Sag Harbor, New York (after moving out his house in Sagaponack that Billy Joel purchased). more ›

We were catching up with Law & Order: Criminal Intent tonight and at one point, Detective Robert Goren is talking to a former Marine. He asked former Marine where he did training and former Marine answers, "Parris Island." Ha! more ›

Darren Starr’s Sex in the City like Cashmere Mafia was set to debut at the end of November, but was put off due to the writers' strike. So don’t get too attached to this series, since there appears to be only seven episodes produced of the 13 ordered. more ›

A look at some noteworthy television this week: more ›

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 show Kidnapped to join the L&O cast - Jeremy Sisto is the new detective, accompanying Jesse L. Martin. Martin is only signed on for about half the season, so there may yet another cast change. Wolf said that he wants to attract a younger demographic and teased some of what Jack McCoy may face. From the Daily News:

Sam is not going to be the pragmatist the elected politicians have been. He's also going to be someone who goes through changes in his own attitude because he is doing a different job, and a lot of it is going to be fascinating because we talked openly about what happens to men of a certain age and a certain stature when the next generation comes in. There's a lot to play here.

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! more ›

A look at some noteworthy television this week: more ›

Swanson: Law & Order called my agent and said that they're doing the Anna Nicole Smith story. They knew I had just given birth a month before and asked, "How does she feel and how does she look?" My agent said, "Well, she's a little heavy, because she just had a baby," and they told him it would work for the story, because the character just had a baby, so she's up a few pounds, too. [Laughs] So after much discussion with [boyfriend] Lloyd, I decided to do the show... more ›

A look at some noteworthy television this week: more ›

A look at some noteworthy television this week: more ›

In the recent history of television, the people have been given three separate but still gritty police procedurals set in New York City: The police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders in Law & Order, the dedicated Special Victims Unit detectives who investigate especially heinous sexually based offenses in Law & Order Special Victims Unit, and the Major Case Squad detectives who chew scenery as well as they suss out suspects in Law & Order Criminal Intent. But some of their stories may end, as producer Dick Wolf is in the midst of negotiations with NBC over the fate of Law & Order as well as L&O CI. more ›

A look at some noteworthy television this week: more ›

The Post has this crazy story about how a woman used various identities to attend schools like Columbia, Harvard, and California State. Naturally, she studied criminology and psychology! It sounds like a Law & Order: Criminal Intent multi-episode arc in the making. more ›

Maybe the new badge of infamy is how quickly your story gets co-opted by a Law & Order show. Apparently the antics of former Attorney General candidate Jeanine Pirro and trouble-making husband Al will be dramatized for an episode of Criminal Intent that will air next year. The Post has details:

In the episode, a very Pirro-like politician has her eyes on becoming the first female mayor of New York. But her husband, who's described as "very charming with a checkered past," throws a monkey wrench into her hopes when he's suspected of murdering his wife's mentor, a respected judge. more ›

1. The Democrats officially have control of the Senate - Virginia Senator George Allen conceded
2. Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a watermain break in the Bronx, an overturned ambulance in Brooklyn, and a shooting in Harlem.
3. James Madison H.S. in Brooklyn has produced three current U.S. Senators. Now if they could only do something about all the metal-detectors.
4. Adrienne Shelly's killer is at Bellevue, undergoing psychiatric evaluations
5. City officials are saying the intersection of Flatbush Avenue and Glenwood Road isn't dangerous, even after the SUV crash that killed a 5 year old -- but Streetsblog checked, and "the intersection within the 99th percentile for most dangerous signalized intersections in New York City."
6. Why is the Empire State Building red tonight? To support #15 Rutgers' football which is playing #3 Louisville tonight (ESPN, 7:30PM)
7. The Rockefeller Christmas Tree will be arriving from Connecticut tomorrow!
8. It was a record night at Christie's for the Impressionist and modern art auction - but they ended up pulling the disputed Picasso!
9. How many construction sites in Greenpoint does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?
10. And set your Tivos! Tomorrow night is Celebrity Jeopardy with Law & Order's Sam Waterston, Law & Order: Criminal Intent's Kathryn Erbe, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit's Christopher Meloni! CHUNG CHUNG!

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There are about a hundred police specialties but Gothamist loves the idea that there's a special group of police officers just dedicated to polygraph tests. Because then we'd get Law & Order: Polygraph Edition, with all the action in an interrogation room. The NY Post calls a group of police officers "The Truth Squad," and six of the officers are in the Major Case Squad (what L&O: Criminal Intent is about). We're not sure if the officers use polygraph machines or a combination of machine and CIA-spook style lie detection tells, but who knew that pregnant women couldn't take polygraph tests? Since the Post makes a big deal out of this being something new for the NYPD, our hunch (from L&O SVU) that most polygraphs were given by other experts, like from the FBI, was probably right. more ›

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- NBC's Wednesday night airing of fresh Law & Order is down 14% (adults 18-49) versus 2005 and 33% versus 2004 - that's when it's up against CSI New York more ›

Gothamist was trying to free up our Sunday nights for mindless TV, but we got sucked into watching the Sopranos final season premiere. And was it a doozy. It had been way too long since we'd seen Silvio's hair and heard a bad joke from Christopher. We wonder if James Gandolfini partakes in Method Acting when he eats sushi and needs to get hefty for the part (we think yes). Anyway, we're not getting into too many details now, knowing that some of you may have TiVo'd, but we're very excited to hate Meadow (how long is Finn gonna last?) and A.J. (he's got long hair!) and wonder how long Tony and the crew last with the feds moving in on them. What did you think of last night's episode? more ›

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I got paid to write Kissing a Fool, and it was movie money, made from working on those types of films, that allowed me to write a book. No different than working any type of job while trying to work on something better. more ›

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The moment that you thought the Peter Braunstein story couldn't get crazier, it does. Sure, there were reports of the suspected attacker of a Chelsea woman being spotted in Brooklyn (bring in the search dogs!) and then the journalist is in Ohio, posing as a movie producer, as the police determine that he has purchased various police-type badges on eBay. And now, his half-brother shames him on the cover of the Daily News. If anything, Allan Starkie's emergence gives even more context as to why Braunstein, who has been portrayed as fame-monger, might be off his rocker.

"He's so incredibly jealous of me," Starkie said of Braunstein. "When he was doing mediocre in school, I had been selected for the Olympic team in fencing... When I started getting involved with the royal family, Peter was in school, dating a stewardess."

Police are still looking for Peter Braunstein, the man suspected attacking a former co-worker in her Chelsea apartment as he disguised himself as a firefighter. Police continue to say that they believe Braunstein "is enjoying" the attention, but are concerned he may attack again. The Post reports that security at Fairchild Publications, where WWD, Details, Jane, W, and other pubs are headquarters and where he used to work, has been increased, with extra guards "at times stationing themselves outside the women's bathrooms." Further, Braunstein may be familiar wtih some police tactics as he would study his videos of how the police acted during public protests. more ›