Post by annabelleleigh on Dec 17, 2008 15:01:19 GMT -5
Boldface mine.
AL
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Leno move threatens ‘franchise’
Commentary by Jeff Simon
News Arts Editor
The Buffalo News
December 16, 2008
Excerpt:
"Dick Wolf was nowhere to be found. The general assumption among TV cognoscenti is that he was off somewhere having a coronary or gnawing at his fingernails up to the forearm. For press purposes, he had absolutely nothing to say about last week’s announced plan to give Jay Leno NBC’s 10 p.m. time slot five nights a week in the fall of 2009.
Wolf is the maharajah of the “Law & Order” kingdom, the man who stands to suffer most from NBC honcho Jeff Zucker’s continuing public demonstration of how NOT to be a television executive in the 21st century. As of this writing, Wolf still hasn’t been heard from, and it’s not because no member of the Fourth Estate has left messages on his cell or at his office.
Don’t get me wrong. Zucker’s 10 p.m. make-good on his original legendarily asinine treatment of Leno is a very interesting idea. No matter how whopping Leno’s salary will be, it saves money (which always gets “attaboys” from suits in the front office) and it offers an interesting new solution to NBC’s current ratings stasis.
In truth, except for the major shafting of Dick Wolf, I rather like the idea...
...I like “Law & Order”; I like “Law & Order SVU” even more.
But I know people who are genuine, card-carrying “Law & Order” fanatics. Their DVRs are full of them. They watch them every time a stray hour or two frees up in their schedule.
The new Leno plan is, at the very least, a major problem for Wolf and, at worst, a disaster.
The whopping problem it creates is that even if NBC keeps both current “Law & Order” shows on its airwaves in 2009 in new 9 p. m. time slots, they’re going to have to make content adjustments for the earlier time periods. If you check out at least half of what goes on in the average “Law & Order SVU,” you’d have a hard time getting away with it all at 9 p. m., no matter what they do over at CBS on “CSI” and “Criminal Minds.”
“Law & Order SVU” can be a very lurid show, which is, of course, why conventional middle class America has taken it to its bosom with such deep affection. Most American lives are spent with sordidness only as distant news or at one-or two-step remove out in the world.
Dick Wolf’s shows are intriguing, even disturbing, crash courses for most of us in all the awful things that happen to people who are friends of friends or neighbors of people at work. They set up big courtroom moral dilemmas for all of us to pretend to be jury members and judges.
They’re, of course, fiction, but in a sense all “Law & Order” shows are game shows, with audience members doubling as jury members. They’re already a kind of reality TV.
Even if they survive, I do hate to see them watered down from PG-13 to PG. If they don’t survive, there’s always the possibility of turning USA into the all-day “Law & Order” network."
The full article at
www.buffalonews.com/185/story/524483.html
AL
----------------------------
Leno move threatens ‘franchise’
Commentary by Jeff Simon
News Arts Editor
The Buffalo News
December 16, 2008
Excerpt:
"Dick Wolf was nowhere to be found. The general assumption among TV cognoscenti is that he was off somewhere having a coronary or gnawing at his fingernails up to the forearm. For press purposes, he had absolutely nothing to say about last week’s announced plan to give Jay Leno NBC’s 10 p.m. time slot five nights a week in the fall of 2009.
Wolf is the maharajah of the “Law & Order” kingdom, the man who stands to suffer most from NBC honcho Jeff Zucker’s continuing public demonstration of how NOT to be a television executive in the 21st century. As of this writing, Wolf still hasn’t been heard from, and it’s not because no member of the Fourth Estate has left messages on his cell or at his office.
Don’t get me wrong. Zucker’s 10 p.m. make-good on his original legendarily asinine treatment of Leno is a very interesting idea. No matter how whopping Leno’s salary will be, it saves money (which always gets “attaboys” from suits in the front office) and it offers an interesting new solution to NBC’s current ratings stasis.
In truth, except for the major shafting of Dick Wolf, I rather like the idea...
...I like “Law & Order”; I like “Law & Order SVU” even more.
But I know people who are genuine, card-carrying “Law & Order” fanatics. Their DVRs are full of them. They watch them every time a stray hour or two frees up in their schedule.
The new Leno plan is, at the very least, a major problem for Wolf and, at worst, a disaster.
The whopping problem it creates is that even if NBC keeps both current “Law & Order” shows on its airwaves in 2009 in new 9 p. m. time slots, they’re going to have to make content adjustments for the earlier time periods. If you check out at least half of what goes on in the average “Law & Order SVU,” you’d have a hard time getting away with it all at 9 p. m., no matter what they do over at CBS on “CSI” and “Criminal Minds.”
“Law & Order SVU” can be a very lurid show, which is, of course, why conventional middle class America has taken it to its bosom with such deep affection. Most American lives are spent with sordidness only as distant news or at one-or two-step remove out in the world.
Dick Wolf’s shows are intriguing, even disturbing, crash courses for most of us in all the awful things that happen to people who are friends of friends or neighbors of people at work. They set up big courtroom moral dilemmas for all of us to pretend to be jury members and judges.
They’re, of course, fiction, but in a sense all “Law & Order” shows are game shows, with audience members doubling as jury members. They’re already a kind of reality TV.
Even if they survive, I do hate to see them watered down from PG-13 to PG. If they don’t survive, there’s always the possibility of turning USA into the all-day “Law & Order” network."
The full article at
www.buffalonews.com/185/story/524483.html
