I'm not familiar with actual NYPD policy, but... Can a cop go straight from Detective to a higher rank like Lieutenant without becoming a Sergeant first? I always thought that it was like the military, in that you would have to progress up through every rank and not 'skip' any. As for Benson: I'm sure the writers could come up with an excuse to place her at a higher rank. I think she'd do all right in running the squad, but would probably not want to be stuck behind a desk all the time. This is why, for example, Jack Webb ignored Joe Friday's promotion to Lieutenant (which happened at the end of the original Dragnet series) when Dragnet '67 started: the reasoning was that few lieutenants get out into the field.
I stopped watching ever since they put Munch and Fin in the crapper and tried to go with that Chester Lake crap. The revolving door of cast and same old stories was just totally uncompelling anymore. Every time I think of it, it just makes me want to watch Homicide. They really should have put this one to bed on a high note at least a few years ago, if not sooner. Now it is just going to fizzle on as they keep swapping detectives and DAs in hopes of the next big pairing. Sigh.
More word from Warren Leight: He says that the 14th season premiere may be a two-parter. Also, the (surviving) guest stars from this season finale, up to and including Dean Winters, will all be back. In fact, some of the deleted scenes from said finale might actually be part of said premiere. So I doubt we've seen the last of Cragen... Linky
Jumping in late, but I wanted to say that if SVU went down the crapper, it happened back in season 2, with Neal Baer's takeover. Now he's gone and they replaced him with Warren Leight, who managed to send Criminal Intent down the crapper. If they get Rene Balcer to take over SVU, maybe I'll start watching it. Until then, I have my TOS and CI DVDs. And UK's been pretty good too.
SVU returned to top form this season. Except for a couple of episodes, I was very impressed with this season. Not having Benson and Stabler rehash the same old things were great. Kelli Giddish was the only good thing about Chase, so I'm glad she gets a chance to shine here. Danny Pino was weird to watch on SVU at first, but the more I watched, the more I forgot his Cold Case character. Hell, I even forgot B.D. Wong wasn't a regular until he showed back up. My favorite episode was probably Father Dearest. That one was just about as sick and twisted as you can get on network TV.
This year was a step up, especially with the subtraction of Stabler. That dynamic had long lost its appeal for me. Danny Pino was actually the weak part of the season for me. Though I enjoyed that by the end of the season, the job has warn him down from his fresh faced smile from the beginning of the season, the whole "My wife is cheating on me" story was not well written. Although her own gambling storyline seemed really shoehorned in there, Giddish really works well with the cast and I look forward to her growth.
Anything you think about should make you want to watch Homicide. It's simply one of the best shows in all of creation. Yeah. There was this unique flavor to the 1st season that the show lost in subsequent seasons. I especially love all of Munch's scenes in that 1st season. He also forgot Conviction. But then, the producers seem to be counting on that. I can't think of any other TV series that ever used a regular actor from one series to play a new, totally different regular character on a spin-off series. And that happened twice with Conviction actresses. Milena Govich went on the play Nina Cassidy in the awful 17th season of Law & Order. Julianne Nicholson became Mike Logan's partner on Criminal Intent. Personally, I've always been more of a fan of lawyers than cops. Jack McCoy & Michael Cutter were what got me addicted to the original Law & Order. And Conviction & Trial by Jury were my favorite spin-offs.
If so, they've succeeded, as I hated Conviction. (I don't even consider it a Law & Order show, in the strictest sense - sure, it takes place in that universe, but then again, so does Homicide.) Oh, that happens all the time in the L&O universe. IIRC, at least three of the regulars on Trial By Jury were 'repeat offenders'. So were almost the entire cast of SVU, plus a few from CI as well.
^ Ice-T was never in the original series, but he was in the TV-movie (Exiled) spun off from it. I've never seen it, though, so I don't know what kind of character he played.
Ice-T played a pimp in Exiled: A Law & Order Movie, but it was pretty bad, so I don't blame you for never seeing it. He said regular actors. The only regular actors from a L&O-universe show to be recycled into an entirely different character that I can think of are, as The Borgified Corpse said, Julianne Nicholson and Milena Govich, from the aforementioned Conviction.
^ So you mean, just those who were regulars on one series and became (different) regulars on another? OK. Although, Julianne was in the original series before she was on either of the spinoffs.
SVU has suffered for a lot of years with the making a plot so obtuse. I started to wait to see what the twist would be. Which possible suspect would break from police custody and get in a shoot out in the precinct? Which victim's family member would somehow smuggle a gun into the precinct and shoot the bad guy? The amount of times that the latter happened makes you wonder how Cragen kept his command this long. The plots also went crazy weird for the sake of being weird. How many people want to have their legs cut off like that fetish episode? However, the episode with James Van Der Beek from Dawson's Creek was an excellent episode, well constructed, acted, etc. The characters have all grown stale. Both Stabler and Benson had come to a point where the writers had written themselves into a corner and couldn't think of anywhere else to go with the characters. They've had Ice-T coming to terms with his son's homosexuality and the new characters had their flashes (even though they weren't the best), but the two leads were stuck.
^ This last season was better - more realistic in terms of plots, i.e. not many of the outlandish wide-ranging stuff they used to have. And for the first time in years, if not ever, all episode titles were more than one word.
I have seen Homicide many, many times. I absolutely adore it. The show never jumped, was always compelling even in the sub par final two seasons, and as SVU has gone on, it has become a far cry from Homicide. Seriously, I don't understand why TNT just doesn't rerun it and get a few million viewers. Instead of having that quality on tv, SVU just plods along. But if Cragen is forced out, then does that mean Munch will end up in charge? They would never make Benson a Sergeant. It seems once a character is promote to sergeant, it is the kiss of death because the writers don't know what to do with such a middle man position. Even so, it would take a lot more to get me to pursue SVU again. What's left for them to do? You know, I'm surprised they never tried an SVU spinoff. A few cross overs with another city SVU or have a character move and join elsewhere. Not that it would really change much, but it would be some form of fresh whilst keeping the heinous aspects. Although, is anyone else worried how homogenized we've become to it all?
Sorry for the bump, but Firefly fans might want to take a note of this...apparently there is a major cast change in store for SVU season 14: Spoiler: SVU Adam Baldwin, who plays the new Captain Also it may feature the return of Spoiler: SVU Elliot Stabler, if only for one episode or so. There hasn't been a definite word on this but Chris Meloni said he'd be up for it, there was never any bad blood when he left the show and that he'd like to do a guest return if asked And a guest appearance by Spoiler: SVU Kathryn Erbe, playing her CI character Alexandra Eames
^ Are you sure? I thought the fact that Spoiler: SVU Dann Florek was leaving was a foregone conclusion.