Question: I know scheduling is not your forte, but I'm curious if you've heard any conjecture, or have an opinion, on a scheduling item. Once NBC's new night of football bumps Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Crossing Jordan off of Sundays, do you see NBC holding them until post-football to keep them as Sunday shows, or slotting them elsewhere on the schedule so they launch "on time"?
Answer: I haven't heard anything yet, but my gut tells me NBC wouldn't bench two reliable performers like these crime dramas for the first half of the season. Given NBC's woes throughout the week, these shows can help prop up problematic nights through the fall, and once Sundays open up again in early 2007, CI and Jordan could move back to Sundays if nothing better comes along. Both shows repeat relatively well and have loyal followings. I doubt putting them on ice for several months would enhance their appeal, the way it works for 24. But then, nothing NBC does surprises me anymore. For all I know, there
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Courtney B. Vance, Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Most actors would kill for a regular role on a series — particularly any piece of the criminally successful Law & Order franchise. But initially, Courtney B. Vance was skeptical when L&O creator Dick Wolf offered him the part of Assistant District Attorney Ron Carver on Law & Order: Criminal Intent (on NBC, Sundays at 9 pm/ET) back in 2001. Not only was Vance reluctant to tie himself down to one project, he didn't like the idea of leaving his wife, Angela Bassett, back in Los Angeles while he shot the show in New York City. Eventually Vance signed on, and this past January, L&O: CI reached a major milestone: 100 episodes. The residuals alone co
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Question: I'm sure NBC is happy with their deal to get Sunday Night Football this fall, but it makes me leery about the fate of Crossing Jordan. NBC's been a little mean to this show as of late, having long pauses in between episodes and showing horrible made-for-TV movies in its stead. So I hope that it gets another season. But even if it does, will we be seeing it on a new night or at mid-season?
Answer: I wouldn't worry about Jordan or NBC's other Sunday fixture, Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Both have solid followings and perform admirably against stiff Sunday competition. I would imagine that NBC would find new slots for them on a weeknight — Jordan would probably play well on any night, and both that and CI tend to repeat pretty well. Which is why I'd be surprised if NBC pulls a 24 on these shows and keeps them off the air until the football season is over ...
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Law & Order: Criminal Intent This repeat of September's season premiere heralded Chris Noth's return to the L&O universe as Det. Mike Logan. His reward: a wobbly desk. As Big Mike got adjusted to his new digs, Goren and Eames sought to bust loopy South African serial killer Nicole Wallace (Olivia D'Abo), who may have poisoned a doctor's brother. I disliked watching Goren one-up Dr. Rodgers (Leslie Hendrix) again during the auto
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Law & Order: Criminal IntentAnybody get a Rebecca vibe from this one? Penned by the great Gerry Conway (the same guy who created The Punisher for Marvel Comics), the case involved Dr. Christine Ensel, a plastic surgeon whose parents pushed her into medicine so she would fulfill the promise of her late brother, Frederick, whom she'd never met because he died of leukemia nine months before she was born. The timing was no accident. Frederick was the Ensels' pride and joy, a selfless child who did things like raise money for food to send to starving orphans abroad. His de facto ascension to sainthood made him a royal pain in the bum to luckless Christine, who was forever in competition with her bro's&
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Have you ever stumbled across a Three Stooges short from the Shemp-era and been pleasantly surprised at how much you were entertained? Sure, you think, Shemp's no Curly, but even so, he generated some solid laughs. Perhaps you judged him too harshly after all. That's how I felt about this Goren/Eames installment. Granted, I'll take Mike Logan over Robert Goren every time, even if Logan is the relative newbie (on Criminal Intent anyway). The case followed G&E as they tied the murder of a beloved inner-city nun to a vengeful man whose brother had been beaten to death years earlier for dating a white girl. Vincent D'Onofrio let his guard down for once and showed this L&O fan that, yes, even Goren can be human, make mistakes and be one-upped. It wasn't Goren who suspected that the guilt of Si
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Mr. Big vs. Tennessee Buck. Gotta love it. Chris Noth's hard-luck cop Mike Logan — previously exiled to Staten Island for slugging a politician — took on David Keith's rogue detective Mark Virgini, a man hardly as innocent as his name implied. At first, Mike wasn't eager to bring down a fellow cop. As Barek said, "You know what it's like being on the wrong end of the microscope." Mike's volatile, sure. Let's face it, that's what makes him so much fun. Moreover, there are few things more satisfying in a cop show than the sight of Logan sticking it to a creep — and heaven knows Virgini qualified. When the scum wasn't moonlighting as a hit man (he shot a bookie multiple times in a sensitive male area) he was offering his daughter R
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The appearance the "No relation to persons living or dead" disclaimer at the beginning of this episode makes me wonder who this story was based on. There had to be someone real, otherwise why would they go to the trouble of covering their butt? Hmm... Anyhoo, it was a gas all the same to see Corbin Bernsen as the nasty. He played warden Bill Morris (nee Hendry), a devious sort who tied himself to a fence as part of an elaborate plot to retrieve his missing wife. It's a long story, but he needed to find her as part of complicated plot to keep his mitts on the $250,000 he'd embezzled from his prison. (No, Virginia, law-enforcement folks aren't always good people.) By the good grace of Gerald Ford and the Continental Congress, Bernsen was back in prime time doing what he does best — cads. He imbued bad ol' Bill with just
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NBC may relocate Law & Order: Criminal Intent from Sundays at 9 pm to Fridays at 10 pm to get it out of Desperate Housewives' line of fire, per The Hollywood Reporter. Now if the Peacock really wanted to help CI, it would bench Vincent D'Onofrio and bring in Chris Noth full-time. There, I said it. And now I'm going to hide under my desk 'cause D'Onofrio scares the bejesus out of me.
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The sophomore-season premiere of ABC's Desperate Housewives drew 28.2 million viewers, falling just shy of the series' May finale numbers. The adventures of Bree, Gaby, Susan, Lynette and Betty's strange cellar dweller, coupled with a two-part Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (16.3 million) and Grey's Anatomy's own premiere (19.5 million), led ABC to an easy Sunday-night win. Elsewhere, CBS' Martha Behind Bars TV-movie, handicapped by the football-delayed Cold Case debut, turned out not to be a good thing, with fewer than 10 million samplers, while the fifth-season opener of NBC's Law & Order: Criminal Intent posted its lowest mar
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