Seems like it doesn’t get discussed around here…I love it! Any other fans lurking out there?
booklover
You should contact NBC and tell them of your interest. You seem to be one of the few who does watch this show.
I’ve even started to lose interest in the “mother ship” show.
I catch the show occasionally when it replays on Sunday nights on USA. It’s allright, but I think the kind of limited scope of their investigations drags the show down.
Now Law and Order: Criminal Intent, that’s a good show. In a lot of ways, I think CI is better than just plain L&O any more. It is possible that I will get back into L&O once we get a new ADA and hopefully a new partner for Lenny Briscoe.
Is it just me, or is there a pretty clear BAD-GOOD-BAD-GOOD-BAD pattern going on with the ADA’s on the show?
L & O: SVU is usually the highest rated television program on Friday nights.
That said, I only watch it once in a while. It comes on USA on Sundays too. In my opinion, it has the most consistent acting from all of the actors.
Please tell me that you don’t mean “consistent” to be a synonym of “good.”
That said, I watch it - guilty pleasure.
You think the acting sucks? I think it’s pretty good. Ice-T was shaky at first but he’s decent now. The DA is really good.
Nothing glaringly bad like on plain L & O or over-the-top!!! like on CI.
L & O Observations:
L & O: Jerry Orbach rocks. Still haven’t warmed up to Jesse L. Martin. Miss Angie Harmon like all get out…Abby was sexy, but tough. Steven Hill’s cantankerous character is missed as well. Elisabeth Rohm is terrible…I’ve seen better acting on Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean. Dianne Wiest has an Oscar? Hard to believe from her lethargic perfomances here.
SVU: Best overall acting, although I’m not enamored with Stephanie March. Plotlines, as stated elsewhere, is a little limited though. Chemistry between Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni is the best between any of the L & O characters. Richard Belzer is classic.
CI: Man, this show irritates the hell outta me. Vincent D’Onofrio’s character is as smug and pretentious as anyone on television. Geez, Superman doesn’t have his talent and abilities. He can spot a fiber from a mile away, recognize it as coming from a rare Tibetan yak, recite the address of a sweater factory in the Bronx as using this particular material and spot the killer by the ink on his fingers from the airline ticket from Air Tibet. Bah. Kathryn Erbe plays his straight man.
Used to watch L & O religiously, but usually fall asleep nowadays. Occasionally watch SVU. Can’t watch CI for fear of provoking me into shooting my TV.
Does anyone here watch both L&O:SVU and Oz (on HBO)? The multiple castings are of unreal proportions. I know some actors like to work together and there may be some other reasons, but there is so much cross-over between these two shows (same actors playing different characters) that I am starting to think that maybe they move the police station furniture out at night and move the prison scenes in. It is very interesting to watch two mortal enemies from Oz work together on L&O:SVU though. Example: Schillinger vs. the Priest (Oz) = Skoda and the FBI agent. (Both the Priest and FBI agent are played by B.D. Wong - a perfectly dreamy actor whose character names I can’t remember right now!)
Oh - and Jerry Orbach absolutely still rocks.
YES! I’ve noticed this too, but it’s not only** L&O:SVU**–the casting overlap extends to OZ and the orginal Law and Order program.
I can’t count how many times I’ve seen OZ inmates appear on Law and Order!
Busmalis was a lawyer on L&O.
Shirley Bellinger, Ryan O’Reily, Vern Schillinger, Father Mukada, Chris Keller all appear as regulars on L&O:SVU.
Officer Sean Murphy has appeared on L&O as a lawyer, and has also turned up on L&O:SVU as a suspect.
The dentist who worked on Robson also played a hot dog vendor on** L&O**.
And the list goes on and on! I’ve tried to figure out why the casts overlap so much. Could it be that they both film in New York City, and go through a lot of actors? Maybe there’s probably only so many decent actors in the city.
Both shows are produced by different companies, so that’s not it.
The best I can do is that Dick Wolf (producer of L&O) and Barry Levinson (producer of** OZ**) seem to have a close working relationship. Not only did Law and Order once have a cross-over episode with Levinson’s Homicide, but currently one of the detectives on L&O:SVU (Richard Belzer) is playing the exact same character he played on Homicide!
If you want to talk about actor recycling, check out this site: Law & Order Repeat Offenders. I can understand recurring supporting characters like judges, but it’s odd to see a guy get convicted of murder three seperate times and then appear as a defense attorney. New York must be a small town for actors, relative to Los Angeles.
The record apparantly belongs to Edward D. Murphy, with 12 appearances, all as different characters (although 3 of them are CSU technicians).
As another piece of trivia, five members of the cast of The Practice have appeared on Law & Order. Guess which one played an attorney, and which one played a murderer.
I love them all. The DAs are all a bunch of fascist jerks, except for the late dear departed Clair.
I have a thing for Mariska Hargity. Tonight’s was especially good.
I even like CI, even thought it really stinks as far as writing goes. But watching D’Onofrio and the ADA ham it up as super crime fighters is hilarious. Vincent is constantly repeating his MIB performance as the space cockroach, giving everyone silly looks
I enjoy all three varieties of Law and Order. I’m glad SVU replays on Sunday nights, because I would never get it to watch if it only ran on Fridays. I like Ice-T and Chris Meloni’s characters, though my roommate and I have debates over when Stabler will snap and kill someone.
I can’t stomach CI because D’Onofrio’s character is so irritatingly one-dimensional. Somehow he’s supposed to be a Renaissance man who knows intuitively what’s going on in the minds of criminals. We know this because he strikes his “intuitive” pose, cocking his head and staring intently like a curious puppy, and thrusting his face so close to the suspect’s that you think he’s trying to talk to somebody behind him/her.