TVSquad

This season, Law and Order was looking for a way to get some new energy and interest in the long-running NBC Emmy-winning series, so on the judicial end of the show, they promoted Sam Waterson's Jack McCoy to DA and cast Linus Roache as Assistant District Attorney Michael Cutter. Roache is one of those familiar faces that you've seen on other shows, maybe a movie or two, but here on Law and Order he's making you sit up and take notice. At least that's how it is for me. After watching the first two new episodes when the show returned recently, I wanted to know more about this guy. For starters, why did he remind me of a young Bobby Kennedy?

Well, it turns out that Linus Roache played Robert Kennedy in the mini-series, RFK. The Kennedy connection was even alluded to in last week's episode; at the end of the show, after McCoy had to defend his decision to prosecute overzealous New York City cops by taking the stand in open court, Roache's character, Cutter, gives him a tie pin that once belonged to RFK. With the last line of the show, Cutter says, "I found it on EBay."

People, especially critics, looove to make analogies, trying to compare TV or movie characters to real people.

Thus the attempts by some to liken this season's president on 24 to two flesh and blood politicians both of whom have sought (or likely will seek) the Oval Office.

Describing a man as a youngish, untested African-American politician who enjoys the public's "good will," Chicago Tribune blogger Maureen Ryan wrote, "Does it sound like the hypothetical presidency of Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois' own presidential hopeful? Well, it's actually the story of Wayne Palmer, the president on the current season of 24."