nbc,law and order

Was that a real moment between Bob Costas and Lindsey Vonn during the NBC coverage of the Vancouver Winter Olympics on Saturday night ... or just a typical cross promotion for the Peacock network? You be the judge.

The gold medal winning American downhill ski champion, one of the darlings of the Vancouver games, appeared with Costas. At the end of the interview, Bob reminded Lindsey that she's the biggest 'Law & Order' fan in the world. Lindsey didn't deny it. She said it was true and the video they showed of her visiting the set and gushing about the show looked very sincere.

Well, this episode of 'Law & Order: SVU' is turning into a greatest hits of sexy women from years gone by. Actually, that's not quite accurate. Both of these women are still quite attractive. We already told you that former 'Charlie's Angels' star Jaclyn Smith will be appearing in an episode of the NBC drama on March 31. Now another famous star has been added to the episode.

Ann-Margret will appear in the same episode. TV Guide says that she'll play a woman who starred in commercials in the 1970s who gets involved in the case that Stabler and Benson are working on. Smith will play a detective involved in the same case. And if that's not enough beautiful TV women for you, what if we add Susan Anton and Morgan Fairchild to the mix? This episode is shaping up to be more 'Diagnosis: Murder' or 'Murder She Wrote' than 'Law & Order: SVU,' but it sounds like fun.

Well, I don't know if any episode of any 'Law & Order' show can be described as "fun," but this sounds like it could come close.

When it comes to guest stars, few shows do it as well as NBC's 'Law & Order: SVU.' The past few years the Emmy-winners in the Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series category have come from actors who've visited the show, including Leslie Caron, Ellen Burstyn, Cynthia Nixon and Amanda Plummer. That said, one of 'Charlie's Angels' may need to make some room on her bookshelf for a trophy.

Perhaps that's jumping the gun, but it's still promising to hear that Jaclyn Smith will do a guest turn on 'Law & Order: SVU.' The actress, who'll never be more famous than she was as Kelly Garrett, one of the original 'Charlie's Angels,' gets to appear on the NBC show as a former police officer.

That's pretty ironic, too, because the whole twist about the 'Angels' is that they were frustrated as policewomen and Charlie plucked them out of going-nowhere careers fling papers and writing tickets to make them professional, private detectives in the thick of the action.

Things haven't really been going very well on NBC, and now here's another kick in the shins. Actor Christopher Meloni is talking about leaving 'Law and Order: SVU' at the end of this season. That's right. No more New York detective Elliot Stabler. What's going on and why?

Well, after a dozen years pounding the pavement and fighting the good fight as Elliot, Meloni is interested in doing something else with his career. In an interview Down Under with the Australian Courier-Mail, Meloni said, "I think 12 years is enough." Eight is enough, yes, but twelve?

Anyway, Chris goes on to say that he has interest in doing film projects and returning to the theater. As for the future of Elliot on 'Law and Order: SVU,' Meloni believes he's giving the writers plenty of time to work out a satisfactory exit. He said, "The writers will have fertile ground to figure out how to arc [his way] out to another place, whether it's this world or the next."

Well, it looks like NBC is doing something right.

Amidst an ongoing late-night war between Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien, the network has handed out additional episode orders to a number of its shows.

According to the Live Feed, NBC has ordered four more episodes of 'Trauma,' bringing its season 1 total to 20. 'Community' and 'Parks and Recreation' also received handouts, with three and two new episodes, respectively.

In the middle of the raging late-night war, NBC has let word about their post-Olympics 10 pm schedule slip to those in the know, including Joe Adalian of TheWrap.com.

As NBC entertainment president Jeff Gaspin explained earlier in the week, the slot will contain a combination of reality and scripted shows, and news. The pleasant surprises: Parenthood is slotted at 10 PM ET on Tuesdays, after NBC's hit The Biggest Loser. It starts March 2. Law & Order starts continues its season with a two-hour episode on March 1, and will settle into a Monday at 10 slot on March 8. SVU goes to Wednesdays at 10 on March 3, led in by reruns of the show.

On the reality front, Jerry Seinfeld's The Marriage Ref will air at 10 PM ET after the Thursday comedy block, starting March 4 (it sneak previews after the Olympic closing ceremonies on Feb. 28). And on Fridays, a two-hour Dateline will bow at 9, preceded first by the reality series Who Do You Think You Are, starting March 5, then Friday Night Lights on April 30.

Got it? There will be a quiz later.

There's good and bad news coming from NBC's decision to cancel the 10PM Jay Leno Show. It's going to free up five hours during the week for more scripted shows. That's the good news. The bad news? One of those hours might be filled with yet another Law & Order spinoff.

Yup, the network wants a Los Angeles-based Law & Order from Dick Wolf to add to the franchise. They're calling the new show LOLA, which is probably what we're all going to have to get used to typing since I'm sure this show will be given the green light and we'll be writing about it in the next year or two. Of course, a Law & Order set in Los Angeles sounds a lot like Dragnet. And hey, wasn't Southland set in L.A.?

Soon, all that will be on TV will be different Law and Order, CSI, and NCIS spinoffs and nothing else. Oh and reality show. Lots of reality shows.

If Dick Wolf's Festivus wish was to get Law and Order renewed for another season on NBC, he got what he wished for. NBC chief Angela Bromstad has vowed to renew Law and Order for season 21. That'll mean that Wolf's show will break the long-running record of 20 seasons for a dramatic series held by Gunsmoke.

Bromstad's vow presumably extends to Law and Order SVU, as well, especially since it does better in the ratings. Of course, nothing on the NBC slate is doing particularly well this season with the exception of the National Football League and The Biggest Loser. All the scripted series have struggled in the Nielsens. The Jay Leno Show experiment has been anything but a boon for the prime time schedule, no matter how NBC spins it.

There's another Bravo to NBC crossover afoot. First, The Real Housewives of New Jersey popped over to play themselves on Mercy. Now it turns out that Kathy Griffin is on her way to Law and Order: SVU. And, get this, she's not playing herself. The queen of the D-list will be acting.

Kathy has been tapped to play a lesbian activist in the February 10 episode. As anyone who's watched Kathy on her Emmy-award winning reality show, My Life on the D-List, Kathy is a shameless over-achiever and loves to work. She's ambitious and determined to get off the D-list. As she might say, she would go to the opening of a refrigerator if it would help her career.

A couple of weeks ago, I did a post about the shows that were "on the bubble," the ones in danger of being canceled. Now AOL TV has given the odds on what shows might not be coming back.

A lot of shows on the list won't surprise us: Hank, The Forgotten, Numb3rs, Gary Unmarried, and 'Til Death (each either gets low ratings or has been on for a while), but there are several that I think will actually make it to a another season, including The Good Wife and Parks and Recreation.

Kona told you recently that Benjamin Bratt is coming back to Law & Order for a short time. S. Epatha Merkerson's Van Buren character has been diagnosed with cancer, which always gives shows a chance to bring back old characters. But it also gives a show a chance to bring on new characters, and that's what's going to happen starting this Friday.

Ernie Hudson is joining the show for several episodes. He'll play a guy that's "the love of her life."

Since its first episode aired 20 years ago, 'Law & Order' has specialized in dramatizing crime stories that are, as they say, "ripped from the headlines."

According to an article in The New York Post, an upcoming episode of the series may be fictionalizing a tragedy that is too fresh.

On July 26 of this year, Diane Schuler, 36, was driving in the wrong direction on the Taconic State Parkway north of New York City when her minivan collided with an SUV. Schuler, her 2-year-old daughter and her three young nieces were killed, as were the three men in the SUV.

An autopsy later revealed that Schuler's blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit and that she had marijuana in her system.

According to the Post, last week a 'Law & Order' crew was shooting a scene in upper Manhattan in which a woman drove a minivan filled with young children in the wrong lane on a busy street. The scene ended with a fiery car crash. The episode is reportedly set to air in November.

Law and Order has been taking real-life cases for their show for years. Sometimes they take them so much that it wanders into "lazy writing" category and not "inspired by" category. But tonight's episode, "Reality Bites," could be interesting.

There's a murder (duh) but it involves Larry & Joy, who have a ton of kids and are part of a reality TV show. And there's a twist involving another woman who has a lot of kids. Hmmmm...

[via ew.com]

Here's how you know that Leno isn't very funny: he puts himself into his sketches.

Now, this sketch below, which parodies cop/doctor/lawyer shows, isn't that funny to begin with. It's one of those ideas that's funnier on paper than actually executed. But it's made more unfunny by Leno putting himself in the sketch -- in not one but two different roles. It takes you right out of the sketch.

Oh, and I'm sure fans of TV drama won't be laughing at all, since Leno takes up the time slot in which a lot of NBC dramas could be airing.

More good news out of NBC's top drama. Wentworth Miller is guesting on Law and Order: SVU, and this time he's not going to be behind bars. The Prison Break actor will star in the September 23 premiere of Law and Order: SVU, which is kicking off its 11th season on the NBC.

Wentworth Miller's casting comes on the heels of NBC re-signing of Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni to two-year extensions as the show's mainstays, Detectives Benson and Stabler, as well as the return of Stephanie March as Alex Cabot and a four-show arc for Christine Lahti. I'd say that the powers-that-be are stacking the deck with prime talent to make sure Law and Order: SVU maintains its top quality status.