Posts Under TV Blogging Category
With Law & Order: UK (series 6 in UK or the 2nd half of season 3 in US!) coming back to the UK on January 6 (9pm ITV1), I thought it’s about time I finally write down some thoughts on this show.
I previously wrote a lengthy post about my love for the original L&O / Mothership, so after I finished watching the last three seasons, I really needed something to fill that missing gap. I’m now up to date with L&O:UK also – it’s a bit confusing since in the UK, it was broadcasted in a batch of 6 or 7 episodes, but in the US it was broadcasted in a lot of 13 episodes. For consistency sake I’m going to use the UK series numbers. In the US, they have already shown these series 6 episodes (on BBC America) so you can find spoilers / reviews on this season!
Since I live in Australia I just wanted to add a note on how dismal television programming is in this country. Channel Ten has shown about 9 episodes of L&O:UK somewhere down the track. I seriously doubt it will be back on that channel anytime soon. I think their rights to series 1 & 2 have already expired? But at least you can see it on pay TV. Foxtel (Channel TV1) recently showed series 1 & 2 on Mondays 8:30pm. I hope it will be back soon.
As one of the two remaining L&Os in the franchise (the other still airing will be SVU) – yes I know there’re adaptations in France, Russia and an upcoming one for L&O: Cape Town (!), L&O:UK was adapted from the Mothership with the first half focusing on the police investigating crimes and the second half the crown prosecutors prosecuting the offenders. It’s also important to note all of the episodes in the UK version (so far) are based on scripts from the Mothership, mostly from the earlier years. Before watching L&O:UK I wasn’t familiar with all but one of the original episodes.
L&O:UK series 6 brings about another change in cast. I guess it’s not that much of a spoiler after that cliffhanger episode from the end of series 5 when the ITV website writes quite clearly that a new detective (DS Sam Casey) is joining the show. It is sad to see DS Matt Devlin (Jamie Bamber) go because the “Law” team of DS Ronnie Brooks (Bradley Walsh) and Devlin was one of the main reasons why I fell in love with L&O:UK.
Mothership viewers will be used to the frequent cast changes. Although fans of the original will always have differing opinions on their favourite cast / seasons. I guess being a shorter series, L&O:UK is more character driven – cases often reveal personal details of the characters, and each of the main cast had at least one episode where they were personally involved. After the cast changes in the beginning of the last series (that would be series 5) – only half of the original cast remains.
One of the most surprising (or casting genius!) is Bradley Walsh’s DS Ronnie Brooks. As the older detective, he is often called the UK version of Lennie Briscoe (the late Jerry Orbach). Yes there are many similarities – two ex-wifes, ex-alcoholic… but just watching his work on L&O:UK it’s really hard to imagine this guy was famous for being a comedian and hosting game shows! After the departure of DS Devlin – Ronnie Brooks was the reason I continued watching! Luckily, the L&O:UK writers recognised this and two of the episodes in series 6 focused on DS Brooks.
Since Mike Cutter appeared in the November 30 episode of SVU “Lost Traveler” it’s time to do another picspam! HOWEVER – this will be a *very* short one since he only appeared for like….. one minute. Seriously.
You can find my previous Mike Cutter picspams from 13×01 Scorched Earth and 13×06 True Believers via those links, plus all of my (unedited) screencaps used in this post are here – feel free to use them for graphics or whatever, just credit!
WARNING: Graphic intensive post ahead!
Last week Mike Cutter made an appearance on Law & Order: SVU (13×06 True Believers) so it’s time we do another one of these! Since Linus Roache mentioned he will be in at least four episodes of SVU this season, I’m hoping to do a picspam (of Mike only, of course) for all of his appearances.
You can find the picspam for Linus/Mike’s first appearance on SVU on this post. All of my (unedited) screencaps used in this post are here – feel free to use them for graphics or whatever, just credit!
It’s difficult to imagine Law & Order as “ground breaking” drama. Yet it was considered so when it first appeared on TV screens back in 1990. Before other procedural dramas like “CSI”, “Criminal Minds”, “NCIS” etc etc, Dick Wolf’s vision of police who investigate crimes and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders was considered a risky venture for television networks.
I don’t remember the exact time when I first watched an episode of Law & Order. Maybe it was the mid-90s, when I was still in high school. It was never considered to be a “cool” show, most of my peers would be talking about shows like “90210″ or “Melrose Place”. Law & Order was rather nerdy – since it’s one of the few shows that my Dad and I could watch together.
However, I remember there were a couple of my classmates who also watched it. One of them was rather fond of the relationship between Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) and Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessey). Coincidence or not we eventually went on to study at the same law school, graduating at the same time. We didn’t end up being prosecutors (actually, I never ended up in the legal profession either) but I think there’s a part of us which hopes that there are others like Jack McCoy out there, fighting for justice, fighting for us.
I guess Law & Order is one of those shows we took for granted. The beauty of it is that you don’t have to religiously follow it every week to know what’s going on. It is a mini-movie each episode, in one hour we normally see someone getting killed, the police investigating and finding a suspect, then the lawyers would try to put him/her behind bars. For 20 years the formula remained the same. Its history (and the brand) would also eventually become its downfall.
Since the show requires no “long-term commitment” viewers would come and go, plus there’re always repeats – although this is not necessary the case in Australia – L&O (original) repeats are only on Foxtel channels 111 hits (seasons 1-5) or Channel W (seasons 6-18). People don’t associate L&O with “excitement” or “new”, but rather it’s seen as a tired old show which remained stagnated.
This is far from the truth.
WARNING: Graphic intensive post ahead!
This is the first time I’m doing a babble/picspam like this, so I hope it makes sense! All of my (unedited) screencaps are here – feel free to use them for graphics or whatever, just credit!
My Ramble
One Friday night back in June there wasn’t much on TV and I managed to catch an episode of Law & Order. That was 20×09: For the Defense. And it wasn’t a repeat btw, in Australia they’re just stuffing L&O around and haven’t even finished showing the final season yet. (It’s currently off the schedule, with an unknown return date.) Anyway, I totally fell in love with it all over again (on-and-off watcher since probably the mid-90s!) especially the chemistry between Mike Cutter (Linus Roache) & Connie Rubirosa (Alana de la Garza). So I just *had* to go back and watched seasons 18-20. So 3 months and 60+ episodes later I’ve been eagerly waiting for the ‘return’ of Mike Cutter, this time to SVU.
I’ve watched a few eps of SVU before but never really liked it because I’ve always preferred the “Order” side. After the premiere I’ll probably just watch the eps with Mike, and spend my time watching “L&O:UK” instead. 
I’m hoping to write more about the mothership & the UK flavour in future posts, will see how that goes….so without further ado, I present:
