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.

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]

(S01E01) You might think that you're watching a variation on Law & Order when the first few minutes of The Good Wife commences. It's not just that Chris Noth is in the scene, looking every bit like Mike Logan. It's more that the scene is ripped from the headlines. Disgraced politician -- Elliot Spitzer, David Vitter, Jim McGreevey -- caught in a sex scandal. His innocent, good wife, standing beside him.

As Alicia Florrick, the wife of a Chicago prosecutor who was caught sucking the toes of prostitutes and forced to resign, Julianna Margulies masters the shell-shocked, distant gaze. Her eyes, in fact, fixate on a stray thread on his suit. But the fog lifts quickly and away from the podium, reality comes in the form of a smack in the face. She delivers the smack, and from that moment, you're on her side. Maybe it was a cheap trick, but it worked.

A lot of people thought that one or both of the NBC shows Law and Order and Law and Order: Criminal Intent would be on the cancellation list when NBC presents its upfront tomorrow, but the network has surprised many fans by renewing both shows.

There is a little twist when it comes to Law and Order: CI though. The show will actually first run the new episodes of the season on USA and then NBC will run repeats.

Law and Order is a straight renewal though. The show will head into its 18th season of shows "ripped from the headlines!" As far as Law and Order: SVU goes, most expect that to be renewed with no problem. We'll have full coverage of the network upfronts all this week, starting with NBC on Monday.

The Mayor of Television (hey, they had an election for Mayor of Television? Why didn't anyone tell us??) has invented the Law and Order Fantasy League Game. Basically, you guess which "ripped from the headlines" story one of the Law and Order shows (the original, Criminal Intent, and Special Victims Unit) is going to ripoff write an homage to. Will it be Michael Richards? The O.J. Simpson book controversy?

But you can't just guess which show is going to do which plot and be done with it. You have to tweak it a little bit, so it's "original" (cough cough). So, maybe a former sitcom actor says some nasty racial remarks, only this time it's not at a comedy club, it's at a private party. Or maybe a former pro baseball star (not a football star! accused of killing his parents (not his ex-wife and her friend!) decides to create a web site (not publish a book!) showing pics of the murder scene and how he might have done it.

The Mayor's idea for a Michael Richards-inspired story is more elaborate than mine, and would fit the L&O world nicely.

[via TV Tattle]

Regis just asked Chevy Chase if tonight's Law and Order episode was based on the Mel Gibson case. First of all, dumb question. Second, Chase said it was kind of inspired by the case.

Right.