“Yay!” News of the Day: Chuck Renewed

Woo-to-the-hoo! As I predicted, NBC has indeed done the right thing and picked Chuck up for a 13-episode fourth season! A network rep declined to comment.

[The Ausielo Files]

My Dream Law and Order Cast

It has been reported today that NBC has cancelled Law and Order due to its low ratings.  That ends things at 20 seasons for the show, tied with Gunsmoke for most ever.  My favorite TV critic, Alan Sepinwall, came up with an interesting question after the show’s fate was decided: what is your dream L&O cast?  He asks:

So a question for the fans, whether you’re still watching or not: if you could go back in time and cherrypick six of the more than two dozen regular castmembers the mothership has had to come up with your own dream team has had, which six would it be, and why? To keep this simple, you can’t put someone in a role they didn’t fill when they were on the show. i.e., Jack McCoy can either be your lead prosecutor or he can be running the DA’s office, but you can’t declare that Lennie Briscoe will be your lieutenant while Max Greevey is the senior detective and Phil Ceretta the junior one.

Here’s mine:

• Senior Detective – Lennie Brisco (Jerry Orbach)
• Junior Detective – Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin)
• Police Commanding Officer – Lt. Anita Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson)
• Executive ADA – Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston)
• ADA – Serena Southerlyn (Elisabeth Rohm)
• District Attorney – Arthur Branch (Fred Thompson)

I always loved the combination of Brisco and Green and the sensational work of Orbach.  An eleven season run of that quality by Orbach deserves its praise.  Van Buren wins essentially by lack of competition.  I chose Serena and Branch because I always loved their arguments about morals that always came up in cases.  That and Fred Thompson’s voice is king.  Pretty much all of the female ADAs were good, so this is just a personal preference.  Angie Harmon and Jill Hennessy definitely get an honorable mention.

And Jack McCoy is Law and Order.  Period.

This isn’t to slight the current cast though.  I still watch the current version which is still very good.  This isn’t a case of being cancelled for lack of quality.  It’s a numbers thing.  Tonight I’ll pour out a drink and think to myself, “Law and Order will be missed.”