Question: I'm baffled. Why would a seasoned actor like Sam Waterston essentially accept a demotion to be the DA on Law & Order? It makes no sense for a veteran actor like Waterston to be reduced to a minimal role. The DA, even when the excellent Steven Hill was on the show, usually has only a few scenes, if that, discussing the case and advising on strategy or when to cut a deal. As DA, Waterston won't have his usual scenes bickering with defense lawyers, grilling hostile witnesses and suspects, and making courtroom appearances to argue arcane points of law, much less trial scenes with juicy cross-examinations. It strikes me as absurd for Waterston to agree to be relegated to a walk-on role. It would be like making Dennis Franz lieutenant prior to the end of NYPD Blue. Franz would never have agreed to such a move. So why did Waterston?
Answer: You're assuming he had a choice. The show is going through what Dick Wolf calls "one of its major renovations of the past 10 years." Earlier this
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NBC and Law & Order executive producer Dick Wolf announced on Tuesday that British thesp Linus Roache (Kidnapped, Thomas Wayne in Batman Begins) will join the long-running procedural this season in the capacity of executive assistant district attorney — the office formerly held by Sam Waterston's Jack McCoy, who is now the full-on DA. "I've known Linus' work for several years. He is an actor who totally gets inside his roles," Wolf says in a statement. "I think he and Sam are going to raise the bar and add intellect and passion in the back half of the show." RELATED: Law & Order pulls reruns featuring Fred Thompson.
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The new dramas premiering this fall are K-Ville, starring Anthony Anderson and Cole Hauser as police officers in post-Katrina New Orleans; and New Amsterdam, the first American television project from Oscar-nominated director/producer Lasse Hallström, featuring newcomer Nikolaj Coster Waldau as a unique New York City homicide detective.The new comedy slated for fall is Back to You, from executive producers Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd. Set at a TV news station in Pittsburgh, the sitcom stars Emmy Award-winners Patricia Heaton and Kelsey Grammer, and is directed by James Burrows.The new unscripted series that will premiere this fall include The Search for the Next Great American Band(working title), a reality competition from the producers of American Idol, which will do for undiscovered groups what Idol has done for singers. From the producers of Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, Nashville (working title) is an unscripted docu-soap featuring a group of ambitious you...
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Who's doing what during this pilot season? Here's the latest from Variety and the Hollywood Reporter:• With The O.C.'s swan song but a day away, Melinda Clarke has scored a gig on CBS' The Man, playing a tough and sexy policewoman who has worked with LL Cool J's undercover cop over the years.• Beau Bridges is a father whose two separate sets of grown children don't know the others exist in Fox's Two Families.• Last seen on Pepper Dennis, Lindsay Price is joining Kim Raver and Brooke Shields in NBC'sLipstick Jungle, playing a fashion mogul.• Linus Roache (Kidnapped) is Julianna Margulies' husband in Fox's Canterbury's Law.• Keith Robinson (Over There, Dreamgirls) has joined the Fox crime drama The Apostles.• CBS has picked up three comedy pilots: the Paul Reiser-produced Atlanta, about a man and woman who meet at a funeral; an office comedy from Will & Grace's Max Mutchnick and David Kohan; and The Rich Inner Life of Penelope Cloud, concerning a lite...
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