Since Stephanie March is ...
Question: Since
Stephanie March is going to be on NBC's
Conviction playing her
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit character, and since they're using old
Trial by Jury sets, do you think
Dick Wolf will retitle the spin-off
Law & Order: Conviction? Or will he realize that a little distance from "just another
Law & Order spin-off" might be necessary? Also, in last week's column, you shied away from talking about Michelle Rodriguez's dreadful character, saying you would rather focus on the good in watching
Lost. Uh, isn't it your duty as a TV critic to look at the good and the bad, and "criticize" it?
Answer: To continue the Ana Lucia debate: Uh, I thought I made it clear in that column that I didn't have the problems others were having with her, and I still don't. And while it is my job to criticize, I often find I do it best by not rushing to judgments, by not nitpicking every little flaw, especially in a show I love, and certainly by not piling on. I was trying to be honest by confessing to a blind spot where
Lost is concerned. Agree with it or not, at least I'm not pretending otherwise.
As for Conviction, Dick Wolf seems very determined, despite the Stephanie March casting, for this show to have a very separate identity from the other Law & Order shows. He doesn't consider this a spin-off, so I doubt we'll see those words in the title. (If those clanging between-scene transitions are missing, that will be the real test.) Because Conviction will feature much more plot-driven material about the characters' personal lives, Wolf has even coined a hideous new term to describe this show: "charactercedural." Let's hope the show is better than that sounds.
