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I think there should be a new TNS rule that the male panelists aren't allowed to talk about the campaign. They simply don't have anything worthwhile to say. As I've said before I'm willing to cut Ricky some slack for being so young and for at least having enough self awareness to realize he doesn't know much about politics. I have less time for Mike Yard and his I want everything now, sexism doesn't exist unless it's overt, spinning is the same as lying nonsense. And even less for Rory's "vote meteor strike" schtick. He is old enough to know better and should be better equipped than anyone on the show to see through the media's obsessions with nonsense and likeability. Did he learn nothing from all that time with Jon Stewart?

Yeah and it's not the first time either unfortunately. As far as nuance is concerned I'm willing to cut Ricky some slack as he is so young that it's normal to see things as black and white and any acknowledgement of shades of gray is selling out. Also it seems at least some of it is a pose that he's been growing out of. What I've called his " stoner slacker nihlist" comedic persona before. Mike is old enough to know better. I totally agree about Mike's inability to empathize with others' experiences outside his own. It's his biggest weakness and why that even though he's the funniest of the cast I can't ever see him as a show runner or a host.

I honestly think writing was the bigger issue in the post-Lennie years. And that the real weakness as far as characters are concerned was with the DAs and not the cops (Detective Beauty Queen excepted). Until Rubirosa came along I don't think they would have risked moving Jack up because Sam Waterston's charm was the only thing keeping that half of the show afloat. Once she was there they were able to bring in some fresh blood and move Jack up which gave them a chance to do a new take on previously visited issues. Reading the reply before posting only works in the Dr. Who forums. I'm sure there were all sorts of meetings and discussions that came down to "we have to go younger and cheaper and not invite direct comparisons" vs. "we have to stick with what works" and "give the audience the same, but different or they will give up on us" repeated ad nauseum. Hindsight is 20/20 like you said but in hindsight they managed to keep going another 6 seasons without embarrassing themselves too badly compared to most other long running procedurals.

Yeah that was scarily, hilariously, depressingly accurate. A very well written piece. It was a really good show overall. As a Bugle fan I wish Rory had managed to work jet skis into the Tank Mancusso bit. If he was going to do The American why not go all out. I was also happy to see Larry and everyone else calling out Mike Yard's BS.

I hear what you're saying, but I have to disagree a bit. We saw what happened when they tried to go younger and chase demos after Farina left. Would the show have done any better making that mistake sooner? Combined with Rohm and some of the weakest scripts in the series' run it might have been enough to kill the show. Yeah whoever replaced Orbach was going to get dumped on. Replacing an icon at the same time the writing was starting to decline guarantees that. Going younger might have helped a bit as replacing Orbach with another older established actor might have invited the direct comparison even more, but I really think most of the criticism was for being the one to replace our favorite. As far as Waterston, he definitely had more screen time than his predecessors and was portrayed as more hands on. I thought they did a good job and wish SVU could do half as good as the mothership at promoting a lead and keeping them out front without having them do everything themselves no matter how unrealistic.

Kevin Reilly talked a lot about Full Frontal at TCA. Apparently TBS would like to do more specials for election season and more digital content. I hope they do increase their online presence since as I said before it seems that it's how the newer shows get considered for Emmy noms. It seems TBS is really happy with the show. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/turners-kevin-reilly-wants-more-916010

Cosigned. Perhaps my biggest frustration with this show is it's failure to seize opportunities like this. Why no questions about the troubled history of racism in the libertarian movement? Or about government activism and minority rights? Or about issues specific to the younger generation? Isn't this show supposed to be about alternative POVs and hard truths?

Who cares about truth or reality? We want truthiness. And reality has a well-known liberal bias. Didn't somebody we use to know say that once? Or maybe it was his cousin.

I would also guess pain medication and fatigue/general loopiness seeing his hand. Whatever it is I hope that his hand gets better soon, but it did make for a great panel (along with the awesomeness of Cass Sunstein.) It was a strong show all around actually. PTI alone is usually enough to make a show good, but combined with a good intro and a great panel it was an excellent show. The only thing I can really think of to improve it would be if Ricky shared some of his meds with Larry.

At least it's not as bad as Larry's apparent surprise that people don't realize how much worse Trump is than Hillary or how Bernie's supporters won't acknowledge reality. It makes me wonder if he hasn't been watching his own show these past few months.

He doesn't understand because he would have to admit that he was wrong. It's the same reason he doesn't understand medical science or feminism. Also this issue pushes Bill's buttons like a 2 year old on an office phone. He believes that religion is all bad and if you condemn extremists as perverting or misunderstanding the fundamental teachings of their professed faith you are in denial and the whackjobs are just being honest while the rest of the believers are in denial. He also believes that all religion is equally bad, but Muslms are especially bad, moderate Islam is a fantasy, and you have to say radical Islam all the time or you're soft on terror. There are all sorts of nuances here and Bill doesn't really do nuance well.

I have to disagree this was a total change or even bad writing. Mary Cooper is probably one of the more sympathetic and realistic depictions of a fundamentalist Christian on TV today. I know more than one deeply religious person who was a bit of a wild child. As feisty and intelligent as she seems to be, growing up in a conservative environment it's quite likely. They turned to religion for all sorts of reasons. I also know a lot of conservative Christians who have sexual relationships outside of marriage. Often it's a matter of economics (it's possible that by getting married she would lose money from whatever survivor's benefits she gets for Sheldon's father.) Or they were in a troubled relationship and don't want to make a permanent commitment too soon again just to avoid this particular sin. As Mary put it herself "I'm not perfect." She realizes the conflict and hopes to be forgiven by a higher power. If they'd shown Howard's mother onscreen they would have to have been fired for comedic malpractice. There is no actress, no CGI, nothing Jim Henson's Creature Shop could come up with that wouldn't be a disappointment and less funny than our imagination.

LOVE this phrasing! And agree. Of course it is tempting sometimes to just go with sanity (didn't someone have a rally dedicated just to restoring sanity a few years ago?) given the lack of it out there as was shown tonight. Totally agree about not quite fitting together. I just rewatched it since I loved Monday's show and parts of this show, but couldn't figure out why it didn't work for me. And I came to the same conclusion - the whole was less than the sum of it's parts and a lot of the bus stuff wasn't particularly inspired.

So you're saying that they've had good results by just putting it all out there and not trying to micromanage and a big viral success by just letting Stephen be Stephen and give us something personal and real? If only there was something we could learn from that...

There certainly was a difference. Regarding realism and speechifying I would say it was inversely proportional - courtroom dramatics increased as police histrionics decreased. It was obvious that they spent far more time observing lawyers and courtrooms and far less time with the police in preparing the initial scripts. I don't see as much contrast in acting styles as some do and think some of it on the police side might just be differences in the leads - Florek and Dzundza are a bit more bombastic than their replacements. And there are all sorts of factors at play of course - I've been told by someone who worked on L&O in it's later years that one of the reasons the courtroom dramatics was that as they wanted to explore legal issues more they deliberately had to be less realistic since nobody wanted to watch all the pre-trial hearings, appeals, reading briefs, etc. where they would have actually argued those points in real life.

Good point. One of the things that's often overlooked even by relatively sophisticated fans is the degree of creative interference and micromanagement in network television these days. It's actually increased especially for established series, At least according to my friend who is a television writer and what I read, as I can't say I have any experience producing TV series. There have always been notes and casting approval, but many networks now insist on approving script outlines, changing creative decisions in response to social media, and other minutiae. And they are more involved in hiring of lower level creative personnel too. It's a big part of the reason why so many established creators are moving to cable, streaming, etc.

Agreed about it being more theatrical. It's just a pet peeve of mine that so many people consider restrained or naturalistic to be automatically superior no matter what. Just look at how many terribly unfunny comedies are on TV these days because of that pernicious prejudice. Sometimes a more stylized or "bigger" approach is a better artistic choice.

Not sure I'd agree about "atrocious" but there were definitely some stylistic differences. I think that part of it was that those early scripts seemed to be very inspired by the Golden Age of Television i.e. televised radio plays that were very stagy and not particularly subtle. I'd bet that many of those day players had a background in theater and not a lot of on camera experience since my understanding was that when L&O started production in NYC was at a low point. So there would be even more tendency to "play it big."

Real Time gets another Emmy Nom. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com%2Flists%2Femmys-2016-full-list-nominations-910903&usg=AFQjCNFQNqRC_-s7BuSI8rv0czA8mfiiSw&sig2=1r811VWJSAULKV1LvzdJGg I guess Bill can't complain about being passed over in favor of shows that are funnier, more consistent, and more innovative this time. Maybe we can even stay on his lawn!

I'm actually a bit surprised that Christine Baranski got the nod. She's still a great actress and does a great job delivering the lines, but the writing for this character has become very one note and overboard so the overall performance isn't as good as Metcalf or Newhart.

Agreed on all counts. And the NY Times agrees with us too - http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/15/arts/television/emmy-award-2016-snubs-surprises-game-of-thrones-samantha-bee.html?_r=0 I'm guessing it will be nominated next year as the criteria seems to be an algorithm based on online video views and it seems to be doing quite well in that department, but it got a bit of a late start compared to others. It's also an excellent well done show, but that doesn't seem as important, based on this year's nominees.

I'm not sure what to make of last night's episode. The last segment was powerful and heartfelt and made it's point effectively. I'd be inclined to give the rest of the show a pass based on that, if they weren't making the same damn mistakes and peddling the same lazy narrative that they were before. There are so many opportunities for something smart and funny with the emails. For instance how both sides seem to have learned nothing after 30 years (the GOP launching endless investigations and wild accusations and then wondering why voters mostly shrug when they find something with a bit of substance, the Clintons with the lawerly evasions being too cute by half.) Or the hypocrisy of wanting to make incompetence and bad judgement in foreign policy a criminal matter NOW (and tie it in to Chilcot). Or you could point out that yet again Obama has done something incredible and gotten no credit for it by going two terms without a real scandal on the level of Lewinksy or Iran-Contra. Anything other than what they've done. And they wasted a great guest with the second panel in a row on this. I would have been fascinated to see a discussion on Trump's comments on Saddam Hussein since they had Bassem Youssef. Maybe they could get into how the real Hobson's choice here is in foreign policy between someone who has no real foreign policy and would do whatever fires up the base short term and someone who embodies the bipartisan establishment consensus that has gotten us into this mess.Another horribly wasted opportunity. At least tonight's show should be all substance since we have yet another police shooting in the headlines today...

I hope that Ricky and Grace were paying attention last night because Michael Ian Black was showing them how it's done. You want to point out the vapidness of political discourse and the media? You want to do the disaffected stoner vibe? One liners? You can do that and make intelligent points too! He was brilliant and salvaged the show after another Nightly Nightly and an opening that was pretty well written, but just as bad as the mainstream media in obsessing over "optics" and ignoring the substance.

Yeah a lot of those early episodes feel very 80's now. Not just stylistically, but some of the plots too especially the politics. Of course a lot of that is the fault of historical movements and socioeconomic trends for not neatly fitting into ten year periods starting and ending in years ending in 0...

I thought he was OK although there was a bit of the slacker nihilist stoner vibe that we thought he's outgrown . And the bit about being heckled by the Trump supporter was the highlight of the panel.