TVSquad

Last night, USA Network invited some of their favorite advertisers -- and a few reporters -- to their upfront presentation, held at The Modern, a sleek restaurant and lounge located at New York's Museum of Modern Art. It was an opportunity for USA and NBC Universal executives to crow about the network's continued success as well as let advertisers know what's coming up in 2008 and how they can combine their advertising message with the unique "characters" that USA offers.

All that's well and good -- be ready for more product placement and ad pods that other networks have recently adopted -- but the best part about an upfront presentation are the stars that the network drags out to schmooze and booze with those advertisers. And USA brought the big guns, including Tony Shalhoub from Monk, Debra Messing from The Starter Wife, Jeffrey Donovan and Bruce Campbell from Burn Notice, Dulé Hill, James Roday, and Corbin Bernsen from Psych, Kathryn Erbe and Chris Noth from Law & Order: Criminal Intent, the WWE's Triple H and Shawn Michaels, and Mary McCormack from the network's new show In Plain Sight. I got to speak to a few of them; audio of those interviews is after the jump.

The Mayor of Television (hey, they had an election for Mayor of Television? Why didn't anyone tell us??) has invented the Law and Order Fantasy League Game. Basically, you guess which "ripped from the headlines" story one of the Law and Order shows (the original, Criminal Intent, and Special Victims Unit) is going to ripoff write an homage to. Will it be Michael Richards? The O.J. Simpson book controversy?

But you can't just guess which show is going to do which plot and be done with it. You have to tweak it a little bit, so it's "original" (cough cough). So, maybe a former sitcom actor says some nasty racial remarks, only this time it's not at a comedy club, it's at a private party. Or maybe a former pro baseball star (not a football star! accused of killing his parents (not his ex-wife and her friend!) decides to create a web site (not publish a book!) showing pics of the murder scene and how he might have done it.

The Mayor's idea for a Michael Richards-inspired story is more elaborate than mine, and would fit the L&O world nicely.

[via TV Tattle]

This past issue of USA Weekend offered up an interesting article on the type of people who watch the three versions of CSI and Law & Order. Being that each version of CSI and L&O are fairly unique, different categories of people can be defined for all six shows.

For instance, the article says that fans of the original CSI, which takes place in Las Vegas, are voyeurs who have a secret dark side and are attracted to mysterious types. If you watch Law & Order: Criminal Intent you are an analyst. The article defines the fan of CI as someone who grew up reading Sherlock Holmes novels. If you watch the original Law & Order you are a traditionalist who is probably a bit ticked off about Dennis Farina's replacement on the show.

Personally, I'm an analyst all of the way, with a little bit of the SVU protector. If you want to find out a little more about yourself you can view the complete article at this link.

(S06E01) Since I already provided an early look at the season premiere of Criminal Intent I'm not going to do a full blown review. However, I do want to touch on some of the items I left out for the sake of not spoiling it for the rest of you (ain't I so sweet?).

What actually made me think that this season would be a little different from the last five (other than cast changes) was the beginning of the show. As those of you who have watched the show know it usually begins with scenes of all of the potential suspects in the crime that will be investigated, followed by the discovery of the victim. Not this time around, though. Although one potential suspect is shown (the victim's boyfriend) the main focus is on the victim herself being pursued by her murderer, then being attacked. It is actually a bit intense, and quite bloody.

Göre Yakup. Well, that's a rough translation of what According to Jim would be in Turkish. And, you're asking, why the hell would we want to say According to Jim in Turkish (or English, for that matter)? That's because the long-running ABC sitcom will be reversioned for Turkish audiences.

Now, you're probably asking yourself, "What the hell does reversioning mean?" First, stop swearing. Second, as far as we can tell, reversioning is when the rights to a show are bought by a foreign producer, who then develops the show for their own audiences. We've done it here plenty of times for shows like All in the Family, Three's Company and The Office (all British imports) and international producers have done it for American shows like Friends. In this instance, according to an article in Variety, Jim is being reversioned by Turkish producer Medyapim for local broadcaster ATV. Medyapim has already formatted another ABC sitcom, the recently canceled Hope & Faith, for its local market.

FOX isn't the only network that is jumping the gun in front of the May upfronts to make an announcement about the upcoming fall season. In what comes as no surprise (even though there were rumors that one of its members was on the cancellation bubble) NBC has renewed all three series in the Law & Order franchise: the original, SVU, and Criminal Intent.

All three series have been solid ratings draws this season on a network that is trying to find its way back to the top. SVU is having the best season out of the three with viewership of about 14 million per week. The original Law & Order is second with over 11 million and Criminal Intent, which went with a rotating cast this year and is up against powerhouses The Sopranos and Desperate Housewives, is pulling a bit under 11 million.

Next season will be the 17th for Dick Wolf's original Law & Order, which makes it the longest-running television drama currently running (far ahead of ER's 12 seasons). SVU will mark its eighth season and Criminal Intent will begin its sixth season in the fall. There is no word on whether the current rotating cast of Criminal Intent (Vincent D'Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe as detectives Goren and Eames one week and Chris Noth and Annabella Sciorra as detectives Logan and Barek the next) will continue into next season.

[via Zap2it]

 

 

The third successful spin-off of the original Law and Order series is about to reach its 100th episode, a milestone for any television show. This Sunday's all-new Criminal Intent features the original cast members, Vincent D'Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe, who have been alternating episodes with new detectives Chris Noth and Annabella Sciorra. The episode is called Slither and it was written by executive producer Rene Balcer. The episode is about a European gang leader who likes to kill tourists. By the way, I think the word 'slither' is meant to be a description of the main criminal because the show description doesn't mention anything about snakes. The episode also features Olivia D'Abo, a character whom viewers voted to keep alive during a poll in the show's fourth season. Criminal Intent airs Sundays at 9 pm on NBC.