Question: I was pleasantly surprised to really enjoy the premiere of the original Law & Order. I liked the new additions to the cast and thought the story was also enjoyable. What are your thoughts on the new additions?
Answer: I was kind of "take it or leave it" after the premiere. The new women aren't likely to help or hurt the show measurably. Law & Order fans know who they are and what they'll get, and the plot of the season-opener was reasonably strong. What's missing by replacing Dennis Farina with the show's first-ever hot female detective is that tangible aura of experience and maturity you get with a seasoned lead investigator. (I've got nothing against Jesse L. Martin as Ed Green, but this new team now has a very generic feel to it.) It would be like replacing Sam Waterston with Shark's Jeri Ryan. Not that I want to give Dick Wolf any ideas ...
read more
Question: Who's replacing Dennis Farina and Annie Parisse on Law & Order?
Answer: You'll be seeing lots more women on the set next season. Taking over from Dennis Farina as a lead detective will be Milena Govich, most recently from Dick Wolf's failed Conviction. Taking over the assistant-district-attorney slot will be Alana De La Garza, who last season had the bad luck of being betrothed to CSI: Miami's Horatio Caine for about 10 minutes before she was gunned down. Not that this role traditionally has much job security. ...
read more
For its 17th season, the aging legal drama Law & Order will undergo an extreme makeover. The NBC warhorse moves to Fridays at 10 pm/ET in the fall and will add two new cast members, including — for the first time — a female street detective.
After owning Wednesdays at 10 for more than a decade, L&O finally met its match the past two seasons against CSI: NY. Now NBC is going to see if the show will fare any better against another CBS hit, Numbers, on a night with lower expectations.
Notoriously brusque creator and executive producer
read more
For its 17th season, the aging legal drama Law & Order will undergo an extreme makeover. The NBC warhorse moves to Fridays at 10 pm/ET in the fall and will add two new cast members, including — for the first time — a female street detective.
After owning Wednesdays at 10 for more than a decade, L&O finally met its match the past two seasons against CSI: NY. Now NBC is going to see if the show will fare any better against another CBS hit, Numbers, on a night with lower expectations.
Notoriously brusque creator and executive producer
read more
After attending the networks' upfront presentations all week, the Biz has this analysis of the coming season. (Click here for next fall's grid and new-show descriptions.)
CWYou've got to wonder what went wrong in CW's new-series development process if the network had to bring back 7th Heaven — even though the show lost a reported $16 million for WB this past season.
But the decision to have CW's inaugural schedule made up of established shows from WB and UPN may end up being a blessing. Many of the shows have small but rabid followings, and promoting new shows on a new network will be tough. The fans of shows like One Tree Hill and Veronica Mars will track them down on their own. Viewers in the 18-to-34-year-old demographic that CW targets don't watch networks, they watch shows. (According to recent survey, only one in four 1
read more
