TVSquad

Pulling in anemic ratings week after week, despite a lot of promotion for the series, it's no real surprise that NBC is pulling The Listener off the air. They're leaving it on the air for two more episodes, but come July 30, it's another Law & Order repeat slot.

I made it through exactly one episode of The Listener and then decided that I just couldn't bring myself to care. Despite a dramatic car crash and a missing child, I still found the first episode kind of boring. And Craig Olejnik just isn't very engaging in the lead.

I'm usually pretty patient with a new show, and it's pretty rare that I actively dislike a show right from the beginning. On paper, The Listener should have been the kind of show I do like; I'm a sucker for the supernatural. Maybe NBC was hoping it could be their new Medium, though it looks more like they were just hoping for something to prop up a few hours through the summer.

Even in the summertime, it took only one week of ratings less than half of America's Got Talent on Tuesday night to get The Great American Road Trip relocated to Monday, starting immediately.

I finally got around to watching it, and after one week, I think I've had enough. Maybe I've been spoiled by the beautiful panoramic views we get of the environs on shows like The Amazing Race and Survivor over on CBS. I thought for sure that this nostalgic trip down Historic Route 66 would offer up some beautiful shots of our own amazing country.

In the first episode, they were going to be coming through my neck of the woods, and we Midwesterners love seeing our cities on the television. Only when the families came into St. Louis, we didn't get a nice shot of the city skyline from the Illinois side, or anything. One shot of the top corner of it and they were on the Arch grounds rolling giant plastic balls through rickety mini-arches. With a budget of about a hundred bucks for the challenges, this show looks like something that NBC had a bunch of interns throw together.

Well, that's a relief. After months of speculation that NBC would be bringing Law & Order: SVU back for the 11th season without the two stars that have anchored the show, there's good news. Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni have re-signed with SVU. They pair agreed to stick with NBC's top-rated Neilsen drama for two more seasons.

Good news is probably an understatement. It's really great news because with SVU moving to Wednesday, 9 p.m., the show really didn't need to shake up the cast at this point in time. Stability mattered and NBC found a way to bring the two stars into the fold, offering them both the flexibility they sought.

I figured they would do this, for nostalgia's sake if nothing else. It seems pretty likely that Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is going to outlast the parent that spawned it (because let's face it, sex sells!). Still, it was nice of NBC to renew Law & Order for a 20th season, allowing Dick Wolf to match Gunsmoke at twenty seasons.

Of course, now he's going to be angling to surpass the series next year. Even more ambitious would be a push to outdo Gunsmoke in episodes. With word coming down that L&O got a 16 episode commitment, it's just falling further and further behind.

When William Petersen left CSI, he left a very, very cushy job. He was making a cool $600,000 per episode, more than Kiefer Sutherland was getting for 24, but not quite as much as Charlie Sheen was taking home for Two and a Half Men ($825,000 per show).

Well, CSI decided not to skimp when they cast Laurence Fishburne to assume the star spot on the crime drama. Fishburne is earning more than $14 million for this season of CSI. (So much for a recession!)

It's hard to see beloved characters leave your favorite shows. You have created a bond with them, perhaps even projected their values onto yourself in an effort to raise the self esteem you had before, say, you fell down the Law & Order rabbit hole and started to believe the shows were actual news and not just "ripped from the headlines." But change is inevitable, and sometimes, it works out. Here are a few that worked (at least for me).

1. Current cast of Law & Order: I know, I know, who could replace Lenny Briscoe? No one, really. But the current pairing of Anthony Anderson and Jeremy Sisto as NYPD partners is the best the series has produced. They changed the feel of the show. Perhaps because we're still getting to know them, they are less predictable then previous tandems, and both evoke a certain hard-nosed quality that seems a bit more gritty and real. Plus, Anderson has chops as a stand-up comic, and could easily fill the wisecracker role, if need be.

There's been another transfer out of the squad at NBC. Detective Chester Lake has turned in his badge. Actor Adam Beach is leaving Law and Order: SVU. He'll be on the show till the end of this season -- his one and only with Law and Order: SVU.

Adam Beach, who was also excellent in the Clint Eastwood feature Flags of Our Fathers as the troubled serviceman Ira Hayes, uncomfortable with the acclaim he received as one of the men who rose the flag at Iwo Jima, received a number of award nominations for his role on the HBO mini-series Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee. It was on that project that he worked with producer Dick Wolf.

"From the first day I met him on the set of Bury My Heart, I was knocked out by his commitment, dedication and total immersion in the film's most crucial role," said Wolf.