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EXCLUSIVE: One of the Law & Order franchise signature writer-
producers, Rene Balcer, has joined the new spinoff series, Law & Order: Los Angeles. Balcer will serve as showrunner on Dick Wolf’s new series and will executive produce alongside the project’s writer Blake Masters, Wolf and Peter Jankowski. Balcer wrote an episode in the first season of the flagship Law & Order and joined the series in Season 2. He rose to executive producer before leaving in 2001 to executive produce and showrun spinoff L&O: Criminal Intent, which he developed with creator Wolf. Balcer was at L&O:CI for five seasons. In March 2007, he returned to the mothership series as executive producer and head writer and has served as showrunner for the past three seasons. With the future of that series in limbo after NBC cancelled it, CAA-repped Balcer is moving to the newest addition in the Law & Order franchise. (The original L&O is expected to be shopped to TNT, but it’s unclear if a deal could be made there for original episodes.)
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You think this means that Blake Masters isn’t long for the Wolf world? Yeah, I think that, too. BOMP-BOMMMMM!
Law and Order was brain dead. That’s why is lost ratings and was
cancelled. So why hire a man who was instrumental in running a once food show into the ground?
Is this a hit for Blake Masters? Feels like it.
way to think inside the box
Law and Order was by no means brain dead this season. As usual, it added food for thought to some very contemporary issues. For being 20 years old, it could still hold it’s core audience. I worry a little about LOLA as NYC was such an important part of these series and Los Angeles always adds such a tawdry yet simplistic view to everything That said, in the words of Dick Wolf, this guy is pivotal to the success of these shows so it’s great that he’s on this one.
Ah…WAKE UP…yeah this is a hit.
My instincts tell me Blake sees the writing on the wall (L&O series management in general are a hot-bed of venom and incompetence). He’ll make his money on creating the series then get the fuck out and go create stories he actually wants to tell.
Blake is not the writer who would be on Law and Order for 20 years. Im stunned he even got this job. I get why he took it. He’s about to get PAID!!!!!! GO, BLAKE.
For all those saying the original L&O (Jack McCoy may arguably be one of the best drawn characters in TV history, he’s complex and fascinating to watch) series is brain dead, have you watched L&O:SVU? It’s been brain dead for two at least two years now and last nights episode was ten steps beyond predictably lame. Yet somehow SVU got renewed and the original didn’t. Another typical NBC bonehead move.
Rene Balcer was there at the very beginning of L&O & has been an integral part of its success. I think Wolf has made a very savvy move – lining up the best people for the new show and his acumen for running long-life series cannot be denied. I’m looking forward to LOLA.
SVU is almost unwatchable. For a few years there, it was the best of the L&O shows, and the original was kinda ho-hum. But now SVU, which used to be grounded in some form of reality, is now ridiculous. And as much as I adore the leads, even they aren’t good enough actors to hide the embarrassment of some of their lines and story lines this season. And Sharon Stone? Come on! When she popped around the corner holding that dead kid… I gave up. This show has become as outlandish as a David E. Kelly show.
Blake’s voice will definitely give this series the kind of JOLT it needs…
And Rene’s steady-hand will keep the sausage factory doing what it does best — making Dick Wolf the highest paid non-writing producer the world has ever seen.
Believe me: Rene Balcer did not ruin a once-good show: If anything, he extended its shelf life.
Balcer was not just there from the beginning; along with his writing partner at the time, Michael Chernuchin, he wrote some of L&O’s most trenchant and powerful episodes, in both the Michael Moriarty and Sam Waterston eras.
Sure, blogs are a place to vent. But please, for the love of God, check your facts first before you write something like (paraphrasing): ‘So they bring back the guy who wrecked the show.’
My own feeling is this is a death knell for the original L&O, and that makes me sad. Even if it gets re-upped by TNT — doubtful, for any number of reasons, most of which involve studio politics, as Nikki F. and Nellie A. have already gone into — L&O will not be the same show without Balcer, with or without Chernuchin and Ed Zuckerman in the mix.
L&O was the only show on TV — including the L&O spin-offs — that incorporated both the detective-work and the courtroom drama in the same episode, and for that I’m really sad to see it go. Some casts I liked better than others, but Jeremy Sisto and Linus Roache were top-shelf additions, and Waterston was fitting nicely into his semi-retirement. Alana De La Garza was one of the stronger recent D.A. hires, IMO. Damn NBC all to purgatory for this one.
And, no, I’m not a relative of Balcer’s.
I was a big fan of Masters Brotherhood on Showtime..would much prefer to see him do another original for AMC or FX or HBO..but i get the lure of filthy lucre w a storied franchise..as for Rene very talented _ can’t pin the fate of L+O on hin i/m/o it was the casting of the cops and esp the ada’s–not very compelling once Waterston got his proomotion
I for one would rather see more originality and fewer spinoffs in general..happy tpo see NBC is back in the scripted game bigtime and in general 10 yrs after Survivor started the reality tsunami, the love affair w/that format seems to be waning..yay!
I too was stunned that L&O got dumped while a piece of drek like SVU still haunts us. It is hands-down the worst, most ludicrous, poorly written, poorly researched show in memory. Much of the legalese is total garbage, several times when they say things like “Blah blah blah, so I can’t charge him”, I end up screaming at my TV: “Yuh-huh!!!” And Sharon Stone – OMG! I didn’t think anything could surpass Christine Lahti in (1) facial ugly-to-the-point-of-scariness from a formerly gorgeous woman and (2) acting so bad it made me throw a shoe at my tv. I watched 3 episodes this season – mostly out of morbid curiousity – and each was so bad it was shameful. NBC should comp me for the therapy I need after watching this horror.