Det. Munch retiring after 20 years in prime time: After 21 years as a cop, spanning seven seasons on “Homicide: Life on the Street” and 14 seasons on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” — plus guest appearances on series ranging from “The Wire” to “Arrested Development” — Richard Belzer’s conspiracy-prone cop is hanging up his SVU badge on Wednesday’s episode (9 p.m./Ch. 4). So long, John. Thanks to you the entire world of fictional TV took place in the mind of an autistic child.
Great character and great actor. Loved him on every show he was on. Alonst made me keep watching SVU.
Wow!, his the nexus of so many shows, a large number of shows are in the same universe thanks to him.
^ They're not necessarily in the same universe. In fact, we know at least one reason why they're not, and Munch is the reason: In one H:LOTS episode, Munch mentions The X-Files as a fictional show. Yet, Munch also appeared ON that show. Therefore, there are multiple Munches - one in the L&O/H:LOTS universe, one in the XF one. And if this is true, then this Tommy Westphall crap kind of falls down.
I've been saying for years that SVU needed to trim down it's detectives, especially after they added two after Christopher Meloni's departure. I'm disappointed it's Munch and his humor, but he is rarely in episodes and when he is, it means Dann Florek's Cragen isn't in the episode (but it seems like he'll be gone soon too with the "Mandatory Retirement" line). Am I the only one that would like to see Amaro go as well?
^^ No, I'd much rather see Amaro go than Munch. Munch has been criminally underused in SVU. His character was better suited for Homicide. I started rewatching it a month ago. Great show.
I have a feeling if there is a 16th season the only original cast member left will be Mariska Hargitay and she will become chief of the department because they hinted in the last episode that Cragen is turning 65 and will be forced to retire by the end of the season. Amaro I don't care if he stays or goes, he is just rather useless. The "new" female I like fine though.
So what are really saying is that we could soon see a special NBC miniseries event: crisis on infinite munches
Actually that phrase might carry some entirely unrelated connotations... srsly though: Getting a bit tired of this Tommy Westphall thing constantly rearing its head. So Munch appears in different series? Doesn't mean they share a universe. We know L&O and H:LOTS do, since they had regular crossovers. But that's the extent of it, really. Besides, as I just said, X-Files IS FICTIONAL within the shared L&O/Homicide universe, yet Munch appeared in both. So this alone disproves the "Tommy dreamed it all" theory. And besides, even if you accept any of this Tommy stuff, it doesn't mean none of it was real. People dream about real places all the time. Maybe Tommy was a patient at the real St. Eligius and liked it there, so he fashioned his dream world around them? Or, as I like to think, maybe the final Tommy scene WAS the dream.
His was a cool character. Though I stopped watching years ago, the only reason I watched L&O as long as I did was because of him.
George, your points are all well-taken but I would respectfully suggest that you are taking the shared universe theory a lot more seriously than I do. I only brought it up because it's interesting and fun to speculate on, not that every bit of TV minutiae bears it out.
I'm still of the theory that Spender (aka Cigarette Smoking Man) made sure a television show called The X Files was created - thus helping to discredit (or least, make the work harder of) the actual X Files unit. Hence, how it can appear as a television series within the same universe.
The original article said that Belzer would only do the show in the first place if Dean Winters played his partner. I wonder if Belzer had anything to do with getting Winters *back* on the show after being away for so long... Speaking of which: Whoever invented the hashtag "Bensidy" should be shot without trial. Along with who invented the general concept of cute code names for onscreen couples in the first place. (Benson and Cassidy do go well together though.)
Olivia's relationship with Cassidy is going to end very badly when she admits that she's still in love with Stabler.
It's that kind of crap that has marred SVU. Especially in last week's episode when she came down hard on the female cop for expecting her male partner to love her back. Why couldn't there be a friendship and a working relationship? They seem to be able to do it well with Fin and Rollins.