wknt3

I can only speak for my employer, but yes we do send a letter to the physical address on file (as opposed to the mailing address which can be a PO Box, office, etc.) However due to the way some of our larger competitors abuse words like "official" and "confirmation" many people have a tendency to automatically throw away anything that comes from a bank especially one that's not theirs. And I'm not sure if it's a regulatory requirement or not since I don't work in compliance thankfully (and the rules were laxer at the time) so maybe he picked a bank that let him use a PO Box for mailing the original documents and checks and then deleted it and did everything remotely? As a retail banker I'm not bothered at all. Now the way the detectives get into safe deposit boxes with a simple subpoena in days or track down US currency to individual tellers...

In hindsight this set the template for Lewin's tenure on the show. It was not unsual at all for a character's debut to be underwhelming (heck who would have thought Lennie Briscoe would be a great character, let alone first ballot TVHOF based on "Point of View"?) but in this case they never course corrected. Having watched all of her episodes more than once I think I have figured out what they were going for with her - basically the opposite of Adam, an academic who was an interim and not interested in staying in office and therefore more interested in sending a message by going after the powerful or nu using prosecutorial discretion to acknowledge broader issues that effected criminal actions rather than in getting convictions. Which could have made for an interesting character if they had done something with it, particularly if they had developed the thread of her being a former federal prosecutor who was supposed to be a savvy operator, but they never did except for a glimpse here and there, which were not coincidentally her best moments (like slapping down the judge in "Dissonance"). I think the worse mistakes the show made were when then they prioritized being different from what came before over creating interesting characters (they would do the same thing with Serena and Borgia and it was not a coincidence that the legal side would never be as good until they decided to just find a great actress and write a top notch lawyer with personality even if she was pretty similar to Ross). I also think they never really figured out how to really write for her - too often they just transcribed legal textbooks rather than bothering to give her a fully fleshed out personality.

OOC? Benson manipulating victims to advance her personal agenda and work through her own personal issues has been a central aspect of the character for the last 5 years!

Most universities that I know of went to essential employees only before any governmental actions since they are run by people who actually understand how to interpret data and who know (or are) actual scientists. Plus they are more exposed to the world outside the US and saw what was coming and what needed to be done earlier than most. Since none of the guys had any teaching responsibilities they would have been shifted to work from home fairly early on in all likelihood. With the possible/probable exception of Howard, depending on what he was working on that time and if he could be shifted to other projects (in real life JPL worked to develop a new ventilator and NASA did implement telework for many employees). I would think Amy would also have been shifted to work from home status as I went to school with a number of biomedical researchers and if their work wasn't COVID related a lot of them were telecommuting unless they were in the middle of something that could not be stopped. Of course given that the show is set in a fantasy land where higher ed institutions hire young scientists for full time positions where they have no teaching responsibilities and get to pursue their own research who really knows?

I suspect that the majority of Stephen's viewers would be most familiar with Edward G. Robinson through a pastiche from a non-Saturday morning cartoon...

Of course they have options - as I said it's a goldmine of potential storylines that could and should be explored. It's just that for various reasons they don't want to or they haven't done certain things in so long (like writing extensive trail scenes) that it may not occur to them. They have shut off a lot of those options due to their/TPTB poor decisions over the last 10 years or so and aren't willing to do the work or are simply choosing their battles. I agree with all of this. And here is where I think that they have made things difficult for themselves. They know they should be wrting conflict between Carisi and the squad and showing the difference between the two separate and equally important groups in the criminal justice system. But they also have spent so long showing us that those conflicts are rooted in the lawyers not truly understanding what needs to be done for victims that it is hard to tell those stories. And can you imagine the internal political struggle that would result if they really pursued the angle of a Carisi now outranking Benson in certain matters? Heck they couldn't show her deferring to Jack McCoy! So they show us Liv beinging the one who gets it and kind of half assing it. And bringing in cardboard cut out for Carisi to join the squad in overcoming together. Could this be overcome if they wanted to? Of course. Do they want to enough? I'm skeptical. Here's hoping! Of course it could be just another time where they know what they should do and tell us they're doing it, but then can't manage to pull the trigger because in the end it's all about stroking the star's ego...

I agree that there is a lot of wasted potential with Carisi. There are tons of stories that could be done, Most importantly there are NEW and DIFFERENT stories that could be done which is a rare and precious commodity for a show that has been on for 147 years. Instead of bringing in an evil boss I would love to see Carisi dealing with the different role of prosecutor instead of cop and having to tell his colleagues and friends no. I would love to see him fail too and give in to pressure and his instincts as a police investigator and have to grapple with a perp getting off scot free because he went with his heart instead of his head. The problem is that they have spent so long saying that the squad is always on the side of right and anyone who insists on following the law is at best misguided and doesn't understand victims that writing him as an officer of the court defending due process conflicts with his portrayal as a nice guy and the most morally upright member of the "family". With the exception of Benson, blessings and peace be upon her, who is the messenger of the almighty and the source of all truth and righteousness. So they can't follow the formula they always have with the ADAs where they start off in conflict and eventually become part of the team willing to do whatever is necessary to put away the pervs, laws be damned. They used to play this out over 5 years or so, then it became a year or two for Barba and half a season for Stone. So that is out and their other crutch (teasing UST) is unavailable there aren't a lot of options left besides the way they went.

D'oh! I was thinking that was 6 dead, but that was just in Baltimore. You're right that it was 20 in NYC. Double d'oh! "Locomotion" was 11, But you are correct about "Fluency" where they did end up with 16 confirmed.

53 IIRC One of the most striking openers from the early years is Logan and Cerreta looking at all the body bags lined up. "So many... I've never seen this many. You? Not in civilian life." I think the next highest are the other club fire episode "Blaze" with 20 something and "Gunshow" coming in at 15. At least if we are talking confirmed victims. They never found out how many victims some of their perps actually had, such as Mark Bruner, some of the corporate CEOs, or Dick Cheney.

I don't think it's the fans that has lead to Rollins becoming #2 on the call sheet. If it was it would be much more excusable. Heck it would be better and more understandable if I believed it was a deliberate (if misguided) creative choice, but I think it's more about laziness and lack of effort. Leight loves him some family issues and Mariska really seems to believe that they are saying something profound about the difficulties of being a working mother. Plus the idea that Rollins and Benson would bond over that shared experience seems to be one of few changes Chernuchin made that she liked. Given that making the series watchable is all about managing and containing MH's ego these days it is definitely easier to stick with spreading out the field work as they have done and allowing other characters to have critical insights while Rollins and Benson do most of the interrogations and almost all of the personal interaction. There is also the fact that given how all the map they have written Rollins in the past, they can slot her into any plot requirement without worrying about it seeming OOC. She can identify with almost any victim too much or too little and take just about any ideological perspective and they can pretty much always find something to justify it. Finally there is a certain process of elimination quality to it. Ice-T has limited his screen time instead of getting raises so even though he is #2 for PR purposes and in the mind of the general audience he is not going to get the material we might want. They have boxed themselves in a bit by making Carisi the ADA since Leight doesn't do courtroom scenes and their go to move for Benson/ADA interactions is a no go even for this crew. Does anyone want to see UST between Liv and Carisi???? So he's been backgrounded a bit. And I like Kat and a new detective was much needed and is much appreciated, but I don't want to see them pull a Chester Lake.

Two main opinions would be a refreshing change. Double what we have right now! There is only one opinion that matters and everyone else only matters to the extent they serve that agenda. They only thing that changes is who the primary sidekick is and the degree they allow the rest of the cast to do anything vaguely interesting.

My apologies. I do know better. An episode without Benson constantly front and center would be like a world without lawyers,,,

That was fairly widely reported and I believe it since the writing in those scenes seems like his style. I was attempting to suggest that they would do the same thing - bringing in WL to write therapy scenes to try to handwave away that they were giving a character a badge and a gun again despite the fact that he would never be allowed back after the way he was written off, so that they could bring back a talented and popular actor. I would hope that WL is too busy with his other duties to do more than say "sure you can have Mariska for a guest star spot. We'll do an episode focusing on Fin and Kat!"

According to what has been reported and Meloni himself Matt Olmstead is the showrunner. Leight is busy with SVU and trying to get L&O: Hate Crimes off the ground so his involvement will be limited to crossovers and any set up Dick Wolf and NBC want to go with given the new situation (since COVID killed the plans to lay the groundwork for the series at the end of this past season of SVU. And of course he will be writing the scenes where Stabler is in his NYPD required therapy sessions to explain how the hell the character is back on the job after the way they wrote him off. (Yes that's a joke only 30 people on earth might get, but 10-15 of them are here so why not?)

I respectfully think you are overrating the second half of Season 17 based on how bad Season 18 was and how good the first half was. The second half was where everything we hated in Season 18 really started (Benson doing everything herself and the rest of the cast being reduced to sidekicks, doing the same plot over and over, Benoah front and center constantly, etc.) Leight still had enough clout and experience that the scripts were competent compared to the next season where it felt like they were shooting first drafts. I think we all have a tendency to forget how much bad stuff there was which is why Eid and to a lesser extent Chernuchin get blamed for what is clearly a decision by Wolf and NBC to go in a certain direction with the show. I think Season 19 is more debatable and more of a matter of personal preference. I didn't like the campiness so much, but at least there was a clear direction and secondary characters such as Wong, Warner, etc. What Chernuchin was trying to do is much more the direction I would have preferred, but it kept getting derailed by the star's ego. I liked the best epsisodes of Season 19 more than anything in the later Baer years, but overall they are comparably bad. Personally I liked them both more than the end of the Amaro grimdark period which I only watched when Donal Logue or another of my favorte performers guest starred.

Given the inconsistency of last season if the quality of the SVU episode is what determines if you watch the new series you better hope there are no multi-week plot arcs to follow... Seasons 9-12 are the weakest years in your opinion? They weren't my favorite by any measure, but compared to Season 18 they are Shakespeare, The Wire, Hill Street Blues, Sophocles, and Chekhov rolled into one. If you want to talk multiple years I would include the second half of Season 17 and Season 19 (which had some higher highs than anything in season 12 admittedly, but also didn't have the same quality of cast to distract from the low points which were as bad IMHO and much more boring.)

You would think given Dann Florek's reputation as the ultimate Dick Wolf company man as Noth's as more of a diva wouldn't you? I found one of the quotes I remembered in "Law & Order: The Unofficial Companion"

I've read both from what I would consider reliable sources. Like a few other actors on the franchise he found the commute to NYC draining and he also thought as the lead of the police side there would be more focus on him. And Dzundza knocked heads with just about everyone on the show. The whole cast, Dick Wolf, the writers, probably the grips and craft services too. I think it was Florek who said, talking about those early seasons, that Sorvino was hard to work with, but a delight off camera, and George was hard to work with and impossible to deal with behind the scenes too.

As to the first pont, you would be surprised how long people can keep going. Especially when they have someone to support them as in this episode. I've seen it first hand. It's also really easy for somebody with that support to coast on their reputation and to still be able to sound like their old selves when they are discussing generalities. Especially if you are talking to them early in the day since those with dementia often are more coherent then- there was even a pretty good episode that talked about this phenomena. As far as the second issue you bring up is concerned I'm not sure he is questioning her abilities, but the fact that she has not been elected or appointed to make those decisions. I know my managers respect my opinions and judgement, but they (and their supervisors) still wouldn't want me to be making decisions for them - there is a difference between taking my advice and me making those decisions without competent oversight.

Thanks for that cite! And let me clarify my earlier point. There are plenty of murders and sexual offenses - there are very few wealthy and famous people murdered, and violent sexual serial offenders are rare yet we accept that one unit in NYC sees an entire nation's worth each year because it allows for good stories that explore vital social issues. It is my fervent hope that if this series makes it to air that it will explore both "violent" and "non-violent" hate crimes. I want to see cyber stalking and vandalism and the emotional impact on victims as well as assaults, arson, etc. I do not want them to feel compelled to have a murder or assault every episode. Tell good stories about the full spectrum of hate and bias and I will watch and defend the writers against critics who are upset that it doesn't reflect their perception of reality, no matter what their particular motivation. If you don't tell good stories about all types of these crimes the rest doesn't really matter.

The truth is the EVERY single series in the franchise misrepresents the prevalence of different types of crimes. If the mothership can focus on the more "interesting" types of murders and most viewers feel that SVU was a much better series when it was more focused on the more violent and statistically rarer types of sexually based offenses, why hold this series to a different standard? I have no problem with not having faith in Dick Wolf's current staff, but to say that there are not enough headlines to rip from sadly just isn't true. A lot depends on the execution - I would hope they would learn from their past failures and successes that the series that work are the ones that are distinct and the ones that fail are the ones that don't differentiate themselves enough from the other iterations. I personally would hope that they don't feel the need to make every crime violent and try to achieve dramatic tension by showing the detectives trying to solve cases before any violence occurs or from the fact that no matter what happens nobody will like the answers they find. If they do there is certainly enough material out there for a decent run without delving into graffiti. As I mentioned before my biggest worry is not nuance. Leight has shown he can handle social issues with depth and sensitivity before and I would expect that the instructions from Wolf and the network would be for more nuance rather than to push a particular view which has been the case in his SVU tenure. My fear is that he will indulge his penchant for soapiness and give every character family issues (one from a MAGA family, one with a black Jewish transgender sibling who is an activist constantly battling 1PP, one with a dying parent, etc.) that constantly derail the episodes.

This has been posted in the SVU forum already, but I thought it was worth posting over here so we could discuss the story as opposed to how it might effect the current series, https://tvline.com/2020/06/05/law-order-hate-crimes-spinoff-peacock-streaming-service-language/ https://www.cinemablend.com/television/2547664/why-law-and-orders-next-spinoff-will-need-to-bypass-nbc-for-streaming

Hey they made an effort! That's more than the last 5 seasons of SVU has done! Seriously this is an issue with any series featuring a specialized or elite unit that lasts more than a few seasons. Either they have to come up with reasons for why the unit is working cases they normally wouldn't or they become stale and repetitive in the COTW plots. Some do it better than others - I always liked the way The Closer did the transition from Priority Homicide to Major Crimes since it was an interesting storyline as well as a way of expanding their purview a bit. I'm willing to let the writers handwave it away as long as they make an effort. Especially if the explanation is politics or bureaucratic stupidity since in real life that explains a lot of stuff that makes no logical sense.

Heck I saw a couple of blue check mark accounts bring up UK and Trial By Jury! Even Hate Crimes. Nobody mentioning True Crime though which might be part of the reason it was one and done...

So Crimininal Intent is trending on Twitter! Unfortunately it's because some blowhard was going on about "LAW & ORDER" but at least people besides us are talking about the show again...