Really? Why is it cheaper to film in LA than NY? And why is a new show cheaper to film than another season of an existing show?
About the only thing I can think of is that most of the 'Hollywood' apparatus is still located in/near L.A. Plus New York City is more crowded and thus harder to get a camera crew onto the streets. Although I personally like to rationalize it like this: Since New York actors are better, they are probably more expensive to hire. (Apparently, Broadway actors absolutely LOVE doing Law & Order. Since most L&O shooting is during the day, an actor can do the show then, and still be available to do theater at night. And it's beneficial for the L&O crew as well, since they can just pop down to Broadway and find a ready-made list of guest stars!)
The series is one of the few I watched from the pilot on until recently. For me the "mothership" L&O has never been quite the same without Jerry Orbach. For me the worst thing was McCoy becoming DA. Despite all those years on the show, he just doesn't have the gravitas for the part that Steven Hill or Fred Thompson brought. As for "LOLA" I just have to ask them: "WHY?" I live in southern CA and even I don't want a L&O show about fracking L.A. I'll probably peek at the pilot depending on the cast. The "culture" of L&O is NY. I wonder if they'll have a Mike Post theme. I do watch SouthLAnd which is best focusing on the beat cops and Regina King's detective character but even it isn't as good as "The Shield." I haven't seen a second of LOLA and I'm already negatively anticipating a spate of tired cliches and SoCA "archetypes." If nothing else, Law & Order was RELIABLE television for the viewer.
Well salaries tend to go up for actors with each additional season, but this shouldn't be too much of a factor for L&O considering the rotating cast, not to mention the fact that Van Buren may very well die and McCoy's reduced role as DA.
My main question is what will make a Los Angeles spin-off actually L&O?? It's already been pointed out that it won't be taking place in New York--a major aspect of L&O. This will also make crossovers and cameos more difficult with the NY-based shows. So I'm wondering what current characters from the L&O shows will be in the LA spin-off... Which character will move to Los Angeles?
I think the breast cancer storyline is great. It gives life (oddly enough) to the character but doesn't get too much into it. LA it's easier to film, there are the main studios for the show, people can get to work easily. It's why you never see anything filmed in Chicago, it shouldn't cost more but it ends up doing so. The next part deals with the behind the scenes people wanting more money every year or something. Even that point I don't know why season 1 is cheaper than season 20, but it seems to be the case. Something to do with fees and such. Frankly the only one who would have been with L&O for more than a few years would be McCoy. In the season premiere just kill him off. Have him running for reelection and someone kills him off. Then have that be the background story as the FBI would deal with most of it, but then end with the trial of McCoy's killer and a new murder just happened and the cops need to go check it out. During that they could introduce some new characters, some new cops we haven't seen and have one of them movie to LA. That would lead right into the spin-off. A spinoff doesn't actually need to have any characters from one show spun off until another, they just slap the name on a normal cop show and have the L&O music.
All they have to do is have the first half be "find the killer" and the second part be "find him guilty"... in California. Boom... LOLA.
On the LA show, they'd find the killer with more than enough evidence to put him away, and then in the second half the high-priced lawyer manipulates the case in the media and gets his client off.
It will be a cold day in hell before you find the lawyers getting the bad guys off on a Dick Wolfe show (yes I know it's happened a few times on L&O in 20 years).
they manage to do it well enough in London, not sure if that is considered a spin-off or not however.
Van Buren has cervical cancer, not breast cancer. IIRC, SVU has pretty much always gotten better ratings than the original series. No one knows why for sure but I suspect it's because SVU has some ongoing character arcs which make it more appealing to women, and women are traditionally a more loyal demographic than men. Plus, the original series has never had a strong leading lady like Olivia Benson. (Personally, I've always wanted to see Nana Visitor become a Law & Order regular, either as a detective or as a new Executive ADA.) OTOH, Criminal Intent has always been the weakest, ratings-wise, of the 3. As for why they think LOLA will do better in the ratings than the original series, I think they just suspect that the freshness of it being a new series may bring in new viewers who got tired of the old series. It's the same reason why UPN got rid of Star Trek: Voyager in favor of Enterprise and why the Sci-Fi Channel cancelled Stargate Atlantis in favor of Stargate Universe. I'm willing to give LOLA a chance so long as it follows the cops/lawyers formula of the original series. The lawyers were always my favorite part of the original series and the reason why my favorite spin-offs were Trial by Jury & Conviction. The relative lack of lawyers was the reason why I've had a harder time getting into SVU & Criminal Intent. Since Universal owns Law & Order, I seriously doubt that they would allow him to shop it around to CBS or anything like that. However, I do hold out some hope for the show possibly getting picked up by USA or even TNT. Frankly, if I were NBC, I'd be hedging my bets right now. I'd put LOLA on the fall schedule but keep the original series as a potential mid-season replacement. That way, if LOLA goes down in flames (or a bunch of other new series do and NBC has a lot of holes to fill), they'll still have the reliable ol' original series to fill the void. And if not, they can still ship it over to USA. But what do I know. I'm not an NBC executive.
I don't think that comparison flies. Ent went back to the pre-federation days, Voyager was stuck in the Delta Quandrant, SG:U has them stuck on an Ancient's ship, Atlantis had them operating out a semi-fixed based. While there's each differences the success series was different enough from it's predecessor to stand on it's own. Hell each of the Law and Order series have been different enough to stand on their own. How is Law & Order set in Los Angeles going to really differentiate it's self from the original? They could probably take the vast majority of L&O scripts and move them to L.A without very changes - so what's the point? It's gonna be like CSI, CSI:Miami, CSI: New York - same shit, same show, different city. I'm willing to give LOLA a chance so long as it follows the cops/lawyers formula of the original series. The lawyers were always my favorite part of the original series and the reason why my favorite spin-offs were Trial by Jury & Conviction. The relative lack of lawyers was the reason why I've had a harder time getting into SVU & Criminal Intent. Would only really work if you're going to be able to keep the actors and the sets are stored not destroyed (aka fold and hold vs tear down). Although the oringinal has changed cast over the years it's never been wholesale all at once.
So when ratings for Criminal Intent dropped, NBC shifted the show over to USA. Why can't NBC do the same thing with L&O by shifting it over to a cable network such as USA or TNT? What's the difference?
I found out sometime ago that there is a Russian version of SVU.... However, that's a shame about L&O; that show can go on forever...since it always changes the lead characters. (Something I wouldn't mind SVU doing)...
I must be in the minority here, cause all I can say is Its about damn time, I could never stand Law and Order. with the exception of NCIS I cannot stand procedural crime dramas.