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This is unnecessarily harsh. If we are going to abuse the poor man with power tools, it shouldn't be for killing off Sharon which actually worked dramatically, but for the bit of self-indulgence in the final arc that failed utterly - having Rusty come in and kill Stroh in cold blood and asking us to cheer for it. Which is also far more disrespectful to Sharon Raydor than mere death.

I understand where you're coming from, but one of the things that I liked about the series was that it's characters could be clearly in the wrong sometimes while remaining good people overall, I prefer that to approach other procedurals take where the stars are right even when they are wrong, or the opposite approach that so many "serious" police dramas take where the protagonists are either anti-heroes or their flaws are focused on too much while their good qualities are ignored.

Agree that anything is possible, but there ARE smaller Galaxies out there...

My problem is not that he's not funny. He can be very funny at times and even brilliant. My problem is that he's immature and confuses laziness and nihilism with coolness. Which was fine when he was starting out and was hired for his potential and raw talent. It is not OK for a head writer and veteran performer who is more than old enough to have moved past that stage in his career. If you are too cool to care about anything other than getting laid and some forms of racism leave and let somebody else have a shot. Go off and do your wildly inconsistent sketch show and stand up and let somebody else have their shot. You can still write a couple of brilliant sketches every year if you want. Maybe even a guest appearance. And you won't have to bothered to show up when you aren't inspired. I'm sure somebody else will be happy to do the job all those weeks you have no interest in doing it.

Living in WNY and therefore seeing every comment, tweet, etc. I'm beginning to think he has...

I'm a little confused as to the business decision by MSNBC here as to why they would let an asset like Kasie go for a relatively small amount of money given that they are pursuing the same strategy of trying to grow their streaming presence. It's not like they are dealing with a salary cap like an sports team or something where sometimes you have to let your rising star go to a rival over a few bucks (relatively speaking.) Oh wow! Never realized that. Although I was a kid when she was on local TV and don't watch a lot of MSNBC outside of Maddow and flipping between networks when there is big breaking news. Maybe if Bob Kovachick changed his name to something easier to spell he could have made the big time too...

Actually? I'm not sure how true it is that he was cancelled because of what he said, although Bill would like us to believe that. The controversy played a part with advertisers dropping him for awhile and Sinclair running informercials or whatever on their ABC affiliates, but ultimately he was cancelled because ABC wanted to go in another direction and get away from the topical and do more of a traditional late night show. They had already made an attempt to get Letterman and would push out Koppel when his contract came up a couple years later. A more self aware host (basically anyone in the last few decades of late night except maybe Corden and Fallon) would realize it and basically admit that he said something stupid that made it easier for the backstabbing network execs to do what they wanted to do, but sadly Bill like those he criticizes has bought into his own hype. I don't know about that. I think it's more that Bill is just a narcissistic old white man who is uncomfortable with being expected to truly embrace diversity and change and is looking for a fig leaf to cover up his prejudices. Oh wait. Same thing I guess. True, but the quote that got all the coverage was what Bill said while he was agreeing - ""We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, [it's] not cowardly." So I think the characterization of Bill having said it is accurate. And of course there is the whole issue that agreeing with Dinesh D'Souza on any topic more intellectually advanced than a lunch order is almost always trouble in and of itself...

MSNBC Plans Peacock Push With New Programming Slate Including ‘Morning Mika’

As far as cross-franchise "repeat offenders" are concerned, how can you leave out Aasif Mandvi? He played like 1/2 the Southeast Asian people in NYC across every iteration of the franchise until OC! Other examples that come to mind are Wendell Pierce, Mathew Arkin (yes one of those Arkins), Dan Lauria (although I think they were just fulfilling the SAG requirement that he must have a guest appearance on every procedural and most sitcoms) and there are tons more of course. I'm sure all of us have our particular "them again?" favorites especially the soap opera/Broadway fans among us.

Why do we keep calling the DAs the "Order" side of the show? Surely they are the "Law" and the police are about "Order"? Anyways they did struggle sometimes since they were so fond of the confession that at times it did feel a bit unnecessary. But I think he did play an important role. Not really a foil per se IMHO. He and Deakins shared the Lestrade role from the original Sherlock Holmes stories. They were good and smart men and allies to the hero although very much conventional in their thinking, who admired and relied on Goren, but thought he was a bit too cocksure at times and had doubts about his methods on occasion. It keeps Goren as a bit of a rebel while also within the system, helps the stories by making him find proof beyond just insight and deduction, and allows mediation between his loyal sidekick and those who either oppose or distrust him. Also it allowed for the exploration of the difference between "knowing" and "proving beyond a reasonable doubt' which was important to the franchise. Sometimes you needed a lawyer/"outsider" in that role and part of the reason that the show was better with him was that we knew he was one of the good guys, which wasn't the case when if there was an ADA it was a day player, so that his concerns were legitimate and we knew when Goren was able to find the last piece of the puzzle the perps would face the full weight of the legal system.

I think the answer is best summarized by something I heard in a hospital cafeteria a couple years ago sitting next to some ER staffers - "Dr. Felder always said anything's a sex toy if you try hard enough"

I think it would be more likely to have Nora do a guest spot. I can picture it now - Serena: Thanks for doing this pro bono Nora. We really need someone with your stature to negotiate this plea bargain given that it's such a high profile case and her co-defendant is looking to pin all the blame on her. Let's get over to Hogan Place right away. Nora: Hold on just a second. It's true that our primary ethical obligation is zealous advocacy for our client, but what about our secondary obligations as officers of the court? And as citizens of the State and County of New York? It's true that her co-defendant had more power and should bear more responsibility, but is it really fair for him to receive 90% of the sentence when he only was morally responsible for 65% of the crime? Is there a restorative justice option we could pursue? Criminal cases don't have to be a zero sum game. And what do the Canons of Ethics and case law say on the topic? Serena: We really should take the offer on the table. I had to call in a lot of favors to even get this meeting. Nora: We can't act until we've thoroughly considered all of our options. It's our ethical duty. TITLE CARD: Offices of Dewey, Cheatham, Howe, Sutherland, and Associates. Tuesday September 21 Serena: I've compiled all of the relevant case law as well as law review articles and opinions of the Bar Association Ethics Committee. As you can see it's near unanimous that we should make the deal. Nora: Hmmmm. Well this does appear to be dispositive although Mendoza seems to disregard the conflict between the ethical obligations of counsel in different aspects of the role. I guess we should go ahead. Enter DANIELLE MELNICK Melnick: Hello ladies. Just wanted to let you know that we cut a deal. My client will be testifying against yours and cooperating in the recovery of assets in exchange for 1 year of minimum security followed by probation. They'll be going after your client for 25 to life. Have a nice day.

Well leaving aside the inherent issues of the idea of GOAT given the diversity of genres and the vast changes in technology and culture meaning that you will always end up trying to compare apples and hand grenades and splitting the vote, it is simply a fact that "As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly" beats anything in Season 5.

One minor quibble. There was never any indication she ran for a full term. Given everything we know and were told I honestly can't actually picture her running for office. Arthur won the election, but I don't remember any indication of whom his opponent was. His arrival is just as unexplained and off screen as his departure so at least there is a sort of symmetry.

Probably one of the "Chiefs of D(etective)s" that popped up from time to time like in "Everybody Loves Raimondo's". Or maybe Dan Lauria's character who was a borough commander or something like that, but was a Deputy Chief?

Except for the clumsy editing in their placement! It's minor in the grand scheme of things, but it really annoys me how often a scene ends, we get a title card and one "dun" then an ad beak before the second dun and the next scene. Can't any network/platform but TNT exercise some care in the syndicated/streaming presentation of any version of the franchise?

Yes. After getting rejected by Berkeley...

Yeah there was lots of potential there that was never really used. TPTB seemed to realize that the audience would never embrace anyone who replaced Adam. So they found a NYC prestige actor who helped get the network off their back about gender balance and never bothered to develop or explore the character. And since she was a professor they could just summarize legal ethics textbooks and articles instead of having to do any of the actual hard work of writing like taking those issues and exploring them through the actions of character's with different POVs. After all there was no interest in her succeeding so as long as it didn't get them cancelled they could just coast. Off the top of my head interesting threads that popped up here and there, but were never explored was her interest in using the power of prosecution against the wealthy and powerful rather than the poor and her background as part of NYC's legal elite. I would have loved to see her pushing Jack to "make the deal" but as part of working up the chain. Or forcing Jack to be the pragmatic one concerned about the consequences beyond just winning the case of the moment. It was a shame, especially in season 12 when they had an unintentional weak link on the legal side and really could have used taking advantage of Wiest's talents and the character's potential.

I don't disagree that systemic racism and more broadly the culture of policing and placing loyalty above all else, including public duty is a real problem. And if I had any confidence that it would be handled well I would love to see it explored. Especially since it would mean new and different types of stories. I don't like the story because in my opinion it has not been handled well and they have given us no reason to believe it will be. Instead it will mean more stories about how great Benson is. I hope I am wrong. But nothing so far indicates we will see any sort of nuance or any real consequences. I'm sorry that it seems my comments have been misinterpreted. I don't think the story is clunky because it's "too woke" or based on a faulty premise. I think it's clunky because of the way it's being handled as an occasional C subplot and another hurdle for our heroes to overcome instead of as one of the most compelling issues confronting our society today. I think that both the mothership and OC have had more interesting things to say on the subject without making such an obvious effort.

Dick Wolf, Warren Leight and almost everyone on the SVU team would have preferred to do more episodes. More episodes = more money and like almost everyone on earth they would have preferred more normalcy and the COVID curve flattening sooner. As long as Dick Wolf didn't finangle any government relief dollars it's not our business. I think I'm going to save my criticisms of SVU's response to COVID for the ridiculous and inconsistent depictions of masks, especially in earlier episodes.

The Good: The COTW story. It was a good idea that touched on some interesting issues while continuing to give us some diversity in victims and perps. Didn't do as good as the last couple episodes in executing on the concept, but still a strong idea and the episode was at it;s best when it was focused on the investigation. They did manage to keep the momentum going on using the entire cast squad well without anyone being the designated idiot. Fin and Phoebe. A couple on this show I actually want to see MORE of. Some strong and nuanced performances from the guest cast. The Bad: Garland. He was good as usual, but I'm not liking that it looks like they may either write him out or give us a clunky story abouft Garland (and Benson) vs. the evil white men of the NYPD. I'd rather they actually figure out how to use the character to tell him some new stories about parts of the process they have never really shown us before (as I've mentioned before they should take a page from the mothership and show us Benson doing the stuff Cragen only talked about). The ending. It started well and then went down hill. Yuck. Meloni shows us how he can spin turds into gold, but they should have realized why there is till some shipper interest there and not committed to the full Rollisi. I enjoyed Rollisi when it wasn't actually there on screen and was just organic, arising from the actors' chemistry and the writing of Carisi as almost impossibly nice. But not when the writers have actually tried to make it all textual. Plus they were so focused on getting there that the interesting case just kind of tailed off. And there weren't even any big surprise cameos. Overall this wasn't bad, but it wasn't as good as it could have and should have been. It ended not with a bang, but a meh. Hopefully OC will actually deliver.

Except that would require acting with her eyes which would involve having to move the top half of her face, so that's a no go.

To be fair, he wouldn't be a good boss if he skipped his turn in the rotation duties now would he?

You touch upon some good points. I want to elaborate a bit on one without getting too far into the weeds and going off topic and disagree or at least offer another POV on another. First while antisocial personality disorder cannot be diagnosed until 18 there are diagnoses for younger individuals such as conduct disorder and oppositional defiant disorder that are considered "premorbid conditions" that are always evident although not always diagnosed and treated at the time. There is also a lot of debate as to where and when to draw lines regarding rather an individual can be helped to become a productive member of society which was after all the point of the whole episode and several in the franchise before it. As to the use of the terms sociopath and psychopath I think television writers use them for the same reasons a lot of professionals do in less formal settings. Because they convey an important difference. Does an individual have a conscience? A clear sense of right and wrong. A sociopath does whereas a psychopath doesn't. It affects strategies to detect, question and deal with them. It also matters as to how you write and portray a character as a sociopath is almost always "hot headed" while a psychopath is "cold blooded" and calculated. And rarer. So while it may lack clinical rigor there is some value. It's not about any worry over liability, but about the practical value of the differences in meaning - it says in one word what would take paragraphs otherwise.

I'm not sure that the other hosts have more knowledge per se, although they certainly do about some topics. It's that they do more research and just about all of the other television hosts are more willing to admit what they don't know. I think there are two major reasons that so many of his old time fans are enjoying his show less and less. One is that like most talk show hosts, even the greats like Carson and Letterman, he has found a comfort zone he refuses to leave and is recycling the same premises and bits. And the other is that he is lazy. He phones in entire months of shows and even when he is engaged he never does the prep work needed to reach the level of the post-Jon Stewart generation of topical comedian late night hosts. So unless the topic is one of the few things he happens to know in any depth without being one of his hobby horses he is not willing to listen to opposing opinions about he often doesn't ask the right questions. Which is why I miss Overtime (why didn't that come back with the in studio guests? Oh right - laziness) where the audience did a much better job of knowing what needed to be asked and then Bill's talents as a moderator and conversationalist could shine through without the audience wondering why they weren't discussing the important issues at hand.