Carrie99

I was flipping channels this morning when I came across Jerry Orbach, Jesse L Martin, S. Epatha Merkerson and Elisabeth Rohm on the Today show talking with Matt Lauer.

I think I missed part of the interview but basically they were talking about how each L&O is like a mini movie and how they're proud of it reaching 300 episodes. A stagehand brought out a little cake and put it on the table in front of the cast and Jesse stuck his finger in it to get some icing. [img]smilies/lol.gif[/img] I only caught the last bit so if anyone else saw the whole thing please share. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

NikNak

Aww, that would have been nice to see. I didn't catch it either. Hopefully, somebody else watched it.

Lewisa

darn.. why was i born in Sweden? [img]smilies/lol.gif[/img]
I can never watch these kinds of things [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]

NikNak

I read this in the latest TV Guide.

~

Matt Roush's TV Report Card
Law and Order:

What Worked...

The formula. No matter how many times a day you watch it (network or cable), the rigidly intelligent, complex structure satisfies. It's a seriously addictive habit.

What Didn't...

The formula. After 300 episodes, the sameness can get numbing, predictable, almost abstract. By the final verdict, you often realize you've forgotten the nature of the initial crime.

Plus Or Minuses...

Elisabeth Rohm is so wooden as a prosecutor she brings the show's second half to a thudding halt.

Grade= B+

~

Agree or Disagree? I pretty much agree.

Lewisa

thanx for the news NikNak [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Carrie99

I agree with that article pretty much too. Though, I do still remember what the initial crime. [img]smilies/lol.gif[/img]

NikNak

LOL, Carrie. I usually do, too.

Carrie99

This week's issue of TV Guide in the US has Mariska Hargitay and Chris Meloni on the cover.

You can see the cover and read part of the cover story here [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

NikNak

Cool, thanks for the info. I usually get my TVGuide on Thursdays.

NikNak

I got my TVGuide! Nice articles.
Here's the one about L&O in general from this week's issue.

~

THE LONG ARM OF THE LAW
Why can’t America get enough of Law & Order and its spin-offs? TVGuide critic Matt Roush makes his case.

Perhaps it’s just as well that we can’t get our fill of Law & Order, since it seems there’s a nearly endless supply. Having just aired its 300th episode on NBC- “It doesn’t get more ripped from the headlines than this!” shrieked the promos- this incredibly durable cops-and-lawyers series isn’t merely a TV phenomenon. It’s an addiction, a habit happily fed by NBC and cable outlets TNT (with daily and nightly repeats of the original) and USA Network (with late-night replays of spin-offs Special Victims Unit and Criminal Intent).

In a summer bursting with so-called “reality” high concepts, our appetite for the gritty realism of the Law & Order shows is only likely to intensify. It’s a fact of channel-surfing life that once we stumble across a vintage episode of classic L&O, we’re instantly drawn in.

Half the fun is discovering who among the show’s ever-revolving cast is on the case: Will Jerry Orbach, the one essential player as the sardonic Det. Lenny Briscoe, be teamed with Chris Noth or Benjamin Bratt this time? Will Michael Moriarty or Sam Waterston be leading the charge in court? Please, oh please, let this be from the Jill Hennessy era.

Before we know it, we’ve succumbed to the hypnotic lure of the gripping and ingenious formula: half detection, half prosecution, as a whole near-perfect example of procedural crime drama at its most terse, intelligent and terrific.

Because of the show’s split personality, it may take half the episode before we realize that we’ve seen it before. Not that we care. There’s a comfort zone in watching these legal parables play out to the familiar beat of those “chunk-chunk” scene-setting sound effects. It hardly matters who’s on the screen. Process is the star of this show.

Look what happened when NBC recently started transplanting repeats of all three series into the graveyard of Saturday night. The network came alive, sometimes beating original episodes of competing CBS dramas in key demographics.

Surprising to many, the show drawing especially strong numbers on Saturdays is Special Victims Unit, the sleeper smash that has dominated Friday nights since January 2000. In one of this coming fall’s more aggressive moves, SVU will directly challenge ABC’s 10-year-old NYPD Blue on Tuesdays. Don’t underestimate the (relatively) new kid on this powerful block.

In some ways, SVU is the strongest and most satisfying Law & Order series of the moment. It’s certainly the angriest. While the original show is more of a cerebral exercise, with its legal conundrums and strategies sometimes distancing us from the impact of the criminal act, SVU bluntly exposes us to the heart of the victim.

Most episodes deal with crimes of sexual violation. The detectives, led by Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay, take these cases personally as they pursue justice with a vengeance.

If the original is the smartest, and SVU the darkest and most emotional, then Criminal Intent, a Sunday hit, is the wackiest. Conceived as a star vehicle for Vincent D’Onofrio, whose twitchy and mannered performance as Det. Robert Goren sometimes reeks of ham, CI is a mix of Columbo, Sherlock Holmes and armchair Freud as the master detective plays elaborate psychological mind games.

Whatever the approach, and despite the occasional irksome handicap- B.D. Wong’s smug psychiatrist on SVU, Elisabeth Rohm’s monotonous cipher of a prosecutor on L&O- this juggernaut has far from peaked.

I recently viewed the rarely seen pilot of Law & Order on the first season DVD (with Roy Thinnes as the district attorney instead of Steven Hill) and was impressed at how the elements that would make the show endure were already established.

“I hate media cases,” grumbled George Dzunda as Det. Max Greevey while investigating the mugging of a councilman that unveiled a larger political scandal. A mere 300 episodes later, S. Epatha Merkerson as Lt. Anita Van Buren could be heard griping, “I hate celebrity cases” as she dealt with a famous comic accused of child molestation.

How times haven’t changed. And that’s just how we like it. Over and over and over.

Carrie99

Thanks for posting. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

The article mentioned sometimes watching half the ep before you realize you've seen it before. Sadly a lot of times I can recognize in the teaser if I've seen it, who did what to who and why. [img]smilies/lol.gif[/img]

NikNak

Yeah, sometimes, this happens to me. As the show goes on, I am like, ah, I saw this one before.

Carrie99

I found this article at E!Online. Couldn't find anything more recent though, I'll try looking again later.


"Law & Order" to NBC: Pay Up!

by Bridget Byrne
Jun 2, 2003, 6:10 PM PT

The cost of Law & Order is rising to new heights.

NBC may be held up for a stunning $550 million a year if the network wants to keep airing the three hit L&O series, according to the New York Times. The three-season renewal deal sought by series production company Universal Television would make every episode worth about $8 million and cost the Peacock more than $1.6 billion overall.

Universal is reportedly wrapping the trio of hour dramas, created by überproducer Dick Wolf, into one negotiation package, although only one series, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, is actually up for renewal at the end of the coming season. The original Law & Order and the other spinoff, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, have two seasons left on their current contracts. (Wolf's Law & Order-branded reality series Crime & Punishment, which is running this summer on NBC, is not part of these negotiations.)

If NBC bows to Universal's demand, it would make for the most lucrative entertainment deal in television history. (Sports franchise deals are in another league.) Wolf and Universal's clout comes not only from the series' consistently high ratings--each handily wins its time slot--and their success in reruns, but also because Wolf & Co. are developing a fourth drama in the franchise for the 2004-05 season, which, unlike the other two spin-offs, will play up the legal angle more than the cop angle.

If NBC doesn't cough up, that potentially successful show could be sold to a rival network, minus its Law & Order title, but not its distinctive New York based ripped-from-the-headlines content.

Currently the new show is dubbed Four and is designed for a repertory cast. "Some of the biggest actors in New York are interested because they would not have to appear every week," Universal Television Production president David Kissinger tells the Times.

The newspaper also refers to several other unnamed Universal executives spinning out the information that development on the new show will not proceed further until the future of the established series is known. "The real negotiation has not started," David Goldhill, president of Universal Television, tells the Times, insisting his company didn't intend "getting into a fight" with our "great" broadcast partner NBC, "but clearly, we will do what's best for the franchise and the shows."

Universal, Wolf and NBC refused to comment on the negotiations Monday.

Universal, which would like the deal inked by December, is reportedly willing to play hardball with NBC and shop SVU to another network once its contract expires.

In the past, NBC has given in to costly demands from the producers of its hit series, notably shelling out the big bucks to Warner Bros. to keep Friends and ER. Although the overall L&O price tag is much bigger than the $280 million the network paid in 1998 to hold on to the hospital drama, the price per episode is not quite as much. ER once cost as much as $13 million per episode, but that has been sliced back now to between $8 and $10 million. The medical series rates higher than Law & Order with the 18-49 demographic favored by advertisers, but doesn't repeat nearly as well.

The three L&O series provide NBC with 70 to 72 episodes of original programming each season and endless opportunities to plug scheduling holes with successful reruns. During the recent May sweeps, the programs filled almost 30 hours of air time. Law & Order, which aired its 300th episode last month, is 13 seasons old, but still the number one show in its Wednesday, 10 p.m. slot, providing a profitable lead in to local news and the Tonight show. SVU has been a hit on Fridays for four seasons and this fall is moving to Tuesdays, where it should attract even higher ratings and more advertising dollars for the network. Criminal Intent, only two years old, scores big numbers on Sundays, where it also boosts local late news ratings.

Universal won't reveal the current per-episode price, but the company claims lower-rated series are paid more. "NBC has it at a fantastic bargain," says Kissinger.

According to the Times, one of Universal's negotiating tools is a report Primetime Programming Cost Analysis by Richard A. Bilotti, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, that estimates that during 2001-02 Law & Order was the most profitable scripted show on NBC, contributing $160.7 million in gross profit, 15 percent of gross profit from regular series for the network, where overall prime-time profitability was $681.5 million.

While NBC is considered vulnerable because it has only one more season of Friends, is likely to soon say bye-bye to Frasier and has split with The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin, the Peacock is not completely handcuffed. Universal is owned by deeply in debt Vivendi, which has the studio up for sale. NBC is among the major companies that have expressed interest in owning at least the production arm of the studio (which, of course, includes the Law & Order franchise) and its cable channels, USA Network and the Sci-Fi Channel.

"There is a certain irony that NBC is a potential buyer," an unnamed executive involved in the L&O negotiations tells the Times.

If NBC has its way, it would also be a certain, pardon the pun, poetic justice.

[ 07-05-2003: Message edited Carrie99 ]

Carrie99

So do y'all have any thoughts on the news bit I posted in the above post?

dukesmom

As for the above article, sounds like typical Hollywood negotiations to me.
Below is a report about last night's L&O episode "Payback."