Law & Order - Season 19

I am -- loved Anthony Anderson on the show last season, especially his interplay with Sisto (who reminds me like a young Orbach), but I'm more looking forward to Jeff Goldblum on Criminal Intent.

NBC's press release may have an answer on that (spoilers).

The season opener was pretty solid. I'm not sure I was comfortable with the amount of cant about the wrongness of people enjoying consensual physical combat, but the conflict among the regulars was well-handled. I'll tell you, I never expected to hear multiple Pixies namechecks on this show...

It seems like McCoy has really settled into the political aspect of the DA's office; that was something that he was wary of during last season's episodes.

Pretty good episode. Loved the brass balls of McCoy to charge NY Firefighters as terrorists.

But the "Is it true you've been asked to join the Obama adminestration" question that was thrown in at the end was a bit much.

This.

Goldblum's first appearance/episode as Detective Zach Nichols, who "left the NYPD after Sept. 11 to search for the meaning of life", is Nov. 14th. For some reason I really like that description of his character, it sounds just quirky enough for Goldblum to have fun.

I will miss Noth a lot but I'll give Goldblum a chance.

I thought the big premiere was good but I still don't like Cutter than much.

As it happens, USA suddenly decided to move the new season to 2009.

TV Guide

L&O premiere was solid, a little silly but solid. Too bad the ratings weren't that hot, but at least it's back where it should be.

Great episode. Clancy Brown, Lupo and Bernard almost getting horribly maimed by Starbuck, and McCoy getting the better of the whorehopping Governor.

Can someone please explain to me what the hell that crane falling on that apt. building had to do with the woman who had a disabled daughter and shalvoy felt it was child abuse??

It was Cutter that thought it was child abuse, not the governor.

And the tie was that the guy that died in the crane accident, his wife (who is in a coma)was the part time nanny of the foreman. The foreman was the father of the diabled girl and the mother was partly responsable for the dead guy's wifes condition. The whole child abuse angle was uncovered because the nanny had protested over the procedure the Foreman and his wife wanted to have preformed on the daughter. And that caused the wife to injure the nanny.

I know it's complicated.

As for this weeks episode, I thought it was great. Looks like we know who Jack is gonna be facing off in the election (which I'm guessing we won't know the results of until next seasons premiere). His way of turning the tables on the still unconvincingly young Governor was awesome.

This show has really done an about face since the throw away season when they had it on Friday night. Sisto and Anderson are great as partners. This has once again become my favorite of the 3.

I was a big fan of L&O way back in the day. But with the revolving door of detectives and A.D.A's it got really lame and i totally lost interest in the show. Couple this with Sam Waterson's Shatner-like overacting and i essentially gave up on the show. But as it turns out the current cast does a really good good job of complementing one another. Anthony Anderson as a NY Detective is quite a turn from his role as Antwon mitchell on The Shield.

I guess i'll start watching this again.

Anderson's decent, but Sisto's probably the best detective the main L&O has had since Noth. Glad to see he picked right up where Kidnapped left off. I wrote Roache off after Batman Begins and Chronicles of Riddick, but he's great here - best job playing an American by a Brit on TV right now, IMO. And DeLa Garza is the strongest of the eye-candy AADAs since Hennessy.

Also glad to see the writers have had those real 'kick in the teeth' losses reminiscent of the first few seasons. Watching Meaney get into the elevator with Jena Malone was really tough.

Didn't Michael Moriarty go crazy, like in real life?

Lennie Brisco disagrees.

Its a shame what happened with Moriarty because I really thought he was a better D.A. than McCoy. The chemistry between Moriarty and Hennesey was really top notch and none of the other D.A./ A.D.A. combos have worked as well.

I thought Moriarty also left because he wanted more money. So they fired him.

Moriarty was pretty unstable. Not that there wasn't censorship on television, but he was on a downhill slide. Kept sliding after moving to Canada. Great actor, best L&O ADA, one of the great actors of the 70s, but nuts.

Orbach was great, but he was ill-served by some of the crappiest writing in L&O history. Plus there was just something about Noth, Dzunda, and Sorvino - all those guys hated each other. Made for some great TV.

Cast changes on some of Dick Wolf's shows have at times been about money, but not so much on the flagship show.

Starbuck vs. Billy Chenowith & McCoy vs. Governor Guy Patterson was the best episode of the mothership in a while.

I heard Vivica Fox's last line was supposed to be "I'm gonna toughen you up, Michael Cutter!" but it got cut for time.

Liked this last episode a lot. For a guy who's still not all that into Cutter as a character it went a long way towards convincing me. That last moment with Reynolds in McCoy's office was great.

The "Sweetie Ness" episode was alright but by the end I was pissed off that they couldn't somehow find a way to nail Vivica Fox for lying to them over and over and over again. By the time they out that she was a child prostitute too I felt that I'd just been yanked around from twist to twist for no good reason.

When does the show come back?

"You IDIOT."

Glad to see the budget cutbacks and tremblings of cancellation two seasons ago has actually improved the show. Anderson + Lupo > Green + Govich. McCoy > Branch. Cutter < McCoy, but it's hard NOT to be. Cutter's still cool enough though to not make me mentally imagine how McCoy would be tackling the case of the week.

Personally, my simmering storyarc of interest is less McCoy vs. the Governor and more Lupo: Night School Lawyer. It'd be neat if they actually follow through with the story(recurring plots actually being allowed to develop and not unceremoniously buried is another thing the show's doing right now) and we see a character on the show who's played both halves of the show and know how to keep the sides of the same coin out of conflict.

As someone who has called upstate NY home most of his life, that one where they all make a roadie and have to outwit backslapping good ol' boys was amazing and probably the best episode in a few years. It was interesting for its mix of NYC caricature and disturbingly near-accurate depiction of life north of the Tappan Zee.

At first I'd completely forgotten about the Goldblum era of Criminal Intent starting despite USA's incessant advertising, combed the schedule looking for repeats, and wondered what the hell happened. Glad to see in this thread that I've missed nothing. Goldblum goofiness should be better than Noth seeming like he was just cashing a paycheck. Though I'm still sad that they brought back the vanilla Nicholson from her maternity leave when Alicia Witt was like infinitely more interesting as the partner.

The Goren/Eames episodes will be interesting since the season finale was seemingly a reset button to try to rid Goren of all the outside influences that were making it highly unbelievable that he could be that psycho and still employed.

Law & Order: UK is pretty classy. The production values and direction are much higher than the US version usually is. Jamie Bamber is like some Voltron of Orbach/Noth/Bratt, except with better style. I like the cop side better than the legal side so far (despite Ben Daniels and the girl from Dr. Who being pretty good). I really am interested in how the British cops are able to use the CCTV cameras all around London to their advantage in their investigation.

Also, when it comes to the cops, the show really shines in the writing. They get the black humor of the original, and it's very well done and funny. Found myself chuckling more than once.

Yeah, that's part of Wolf's deal with international networks who want to adapt L&O -- but it's only for the first thirteen episodes. The French and Russian versions of Criminal Intent do the same thing. (Russia also has an SVU.)

Russian sex crimes show, I'm more intrigued by that than the original L&O rape show.

I saw the first episode of the UK version on YouTube, not bad at all.

So Cabot is back on the SUV. She still looks great. I hate Bobby Flay.

I really enjoy any variety of L&O, but I am most interested in seeing Jeff Goldblum's turn at playing a lead in Criminal Intent. I actually think he'll be a neat character to watch, and I think he has the potential to have some good chemistry with Julianne Nicholson.

So yeah, Goldblum basically played himself last week, but it was fun enough that I'll watch him as long as he does the show. His monologue about what it takes to make it as a musician, ending with him playing and the button "...and I'm a cop" was classic Goldblum.

That was an awesome scene. When he was explaining to the parents what an MC was, I was laughing hard. He's pretty quirky, but I really like him on the show. He and Wheeler have a nice exchange going so far, she already smiles more with him around.

That was a great ending. The ending for The SUV, on the other hand, was completely bizarre. I figured they were setting up the annoying CSI tech for something (why else make his so irritating?) but I didn't really expect they go the route they did. It was obvious about 10 minutes into the episode, but still...

Yeah it really would have been. Rough couple of weeks for Tom Everett Scott on NBC though. First his carachter gets killed (I assume) on Southland and now his carachter is forced to step down in disgrace.