Post by Patcat on Oct 15, 2004 23:02:13 GMT -5
WARNING. The following article from Saturday's NEW YORK TIMES contains major spoilers, including revealing the Evil One's worst crime. Do NOT read this if you do not want to know this, or other plot developments. And moderators, if you wish to hold this post, I understand and welcome the edit.
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She's a Killer, and Her Life Is in Your Hands
October 16, 2004
By DAVID CARR and MICHAEL JOSEPH GROSS
Confronted by stiff competition from popular reality shows
and strong new scripted dramas, the producers of one of
television's most lucrative franchises, "Law & Order," have
decided to fight back by letting viewers vote to save or
kill one of its running characters, a television first.
On "Survivor," someone can be voted off the island by other
contestants, but tomorrow, the tribe will consist of the
audience of NBC's "Law & Order: Criminal Intent." At stake
is whether Nicole Wallace, a murderous adversary of
Detective Robert Goren, the show's dark hero, will live to
torment him again beyond the fourth episode of the show's
fourth season. Viewers in the Eastern time zone will see
one ending, while those in the Central, Mountain and
Pacific time zones will see another. Producers will not say
which part of the country will see her killed. Following
the broadcast, viewers can visit www.NBC.com and vote on
which ending they prefer, and will find out when they tune
in the following week whether Nicole Wallace, played by
Olivia D'Abo, will live to perpetrate another day.
Cultural critics have suggested that the fascination with
reality programming would eventually lead to a live
execution on television, but for the time being, the life
hanging in the balance is a fictional one. In a media
environment where teenagers write their own endings on
computer games, viewers vote on which "American Idol"
hopeful survives and determine who rules MTV's "Total
Request Live," the producers of the show, one of three "Law
and Order" dramas on NBC, decided to borrow a little
electoral thunder to generate excitement, and perhaps
ratings, for its long-running, but somewhat fatigued
series.
The viewers were invited to choose the show's ending after
the producers and network executives disagreed over the
decision to kill a memorable villain. In anointing viewers
as virtual Romans at the Coliseum who can snuff out life
with the flick of a mouse, the show is delivering on the
long-awaited promise of interactivity between the viewer
and the viewed, albeit in a small way.
Like its siblings, "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" delivers
a just, intricate universe to viewers, but it has bumped up
against, of all things, a scripted network drama that does
not involve cops, lawyers or forensic pathologists. The
show has been lapped by "Desperate Housewives," a mordant
look at life in an affluent suburb, one of the season's
hottest shows for the suddenly resurgent ABC. Last Sunday
"Desperate Housewives" had more than 20 million viewers,
compared with "Criminal Intent's"12.8 million viewers. The
energized competition pushed "Criminal Intent" out of the
top 20 rated shows on prime-time television. Last season,
all three "Law & Order" shows were ranked in the Nielsen
top 25; the franchise is so important to the network that
executives cited it as one of the reasons NBC purchased
Universal earlier this year.
Dick Wolf, the creator of "Law & Order," who all but
invented a genre in which narrative mystery, not stars,
drive the show, often cites Shakespeare in saying "the
play's the thing." But the viewer referendum tomorrow is
the equivalent of asking the audience if Hamlet is "to be
or not to be."
"This is the chance to do something first in a medium that
is more than 60 years old, and you don't get that chance
very often," Mr. Wolf said. "I will say that it is not much
of a leap of faith in one of the most competitive seasons
in years. The hurricanes are blowing, and we are up against
one of the hottest shows of the year."
It is one thing to generate water-cooler conversation over
"Who shot J. R.?" but it is quite another to ask the
audience whether J. R. should die in the first place.
Networks have long tested pilots with audiences, but this
is the first time that viewers will decide in real time,
more or less, the fate of a particular character.
Mike Fleiss, the creator of "The Bachelor" and a number of
other reality series, said that Mr. Wolf's willingness to
turn to his audience for a verdict made sense.
"Dick Wolf has had an unbelievable run, in part because he
always pays attention to his audience," Mr. Fleiss said.
"The viewer will always respond to a gimmick, and reality
television has whetted the appetite for this kind of
thing."
But Joe Saltzman, a professor of journalism at the
Annenberg School for Communication, said he thought the
comparison was a false one.
"On most of the reality shows, the public doesn't get
involved," he said. "Donald Trump is the one who decides
who is fired, and on 'Survivor' people are voted off the
island by other contestants. What this is about is that
some of the audience is voting by leaving for the
competition, and this is a way to get people involved and
interested in the show."
Mr. Wolf did not conjure the idea of viewer-sponsored
resurrection or death in the first place. Rene Balcer, the
executive producer for "Criminal Intent," explained the
innovation as "a happy accident" - and one whose moral
stakes should not be taken too seriously.
Last May, Mr. Balcer wrote and produced the episode called
"Great Barrier," in which Nicole reveals that, years ago,
she killed her 3-year-old daughter. She then murders her
lover before eluding capture by the police once again.
When Mr. Balcer watched a rough cut of the episode, he
could not imagine a future for Ms. D'Abo's character.
"We've plumbed as deep as we can get in her evilness," he
said. During the summer, he wrote a new ending in which the
villain dies.
When Bruce Evans, vice president of current series at NBC
Entertainment, read the new ending, he said: "I called Rene
immediately because I did not want to see the character
die. She's a wonderfully intriguing character."
But Mr. Balcer (pronounced Bal-SAY) was determined. He
filmed the new ending last month, but Mr. Evans was even
more adamant after he saw it. Late one Friday afternoon, he
called Mr. Balcer again. "I said: 'You're wrong, you're
wrong, you're wrong,' and Rene said: 'You know what? You
have your ending, and I have my ending. So let's show one
to one half of the country, and one to the other.' The bell
went off in my head, and I went, 'Yeah!' "
Mr. Balcer said that he began to see the idea of voting as
"performance art on a national scale, using a broadcast
network as the medium. All the fans on the message boards
are saying: 'I want to kill her,' 'I hope he kills her.'
Once they see the episode, that may change their opinion."
He drew an analogy: "It's easy to believe in the death
penalty in the abstract. If you're the one pulling the
switch, it's a little different. Here, the audience gets to
pull the switch."
Of all the various procedural dramas, "Law & Order" and its
offspring are the most rigorous in terms of due process,
which makes the specter of leaving the life of a character
to audience whimsy seem incongruous to some.
"They're putting the viewer in the role of the
executioner," said Janet Murray, a professor of digital
media at Georgia Tech. "In some way, that violates the
premise of the series: How do we live together as a
society, while containing antisocial impulses? Allowing the
viewers to vote completely undermines the 'order' part of
'Law & Order.' "
But against a cultural backdrop of wildly popular computer
games like Grand Theft Auto, where consumers blow away
characters for nothing more than sheer thrill, its doubtful
the moral dimensions of the programming innovation will
cause a stir.
Ms. D'Abo, the actress whose character's life hangs on the
viewers' vote, came down somewhere in the middle, calling
the situation both "cool" and "a little creepy."
Her character is a duplicitous chameleon, and as a
chold-killer would seem to make a fairly ripe target for
many. Mr. Wolf has often suggested that actors are somewhat
interchangeable and has the turnover to show for it, but he
is a bit sweet on this particular villain, if for no other
reason than that a good antagonist is a hard thing to find.
As a producer in search of a next season and the characters
to go with it, Mr. Wolf is rooting for her survival.
"Personally, I am loath to find permanent solutions for
characters who leave shows," he said.
www.nytimes.com/2004/10/16/arts/television/16nbc.html?ex=1098898144&ei=1&en=9ac111ec710a988f
Patcat