NBC’s new (old) Law & Order adds Anthony Anderson and Hugh Dancy
Anthony Anderson will be reprising his role as Detective Kevin Bernard
Aux News Law & Order
What is this, a crossover episode?! Law & Order: Cannibal Intent? Whatever joke you want to make, NBC’s revival of the original Law & Order series is going to bring back Anthony Anderson—who starred in the final few seasons of the show’s original run as Detective Kevin Bernard—and throw in Hannibal star Hugh Dancy as an assistant district attorney.
Anderson is the first old Law & Order star to join the new series, but NBC reportedly really wants Sam Waterston to come back in some capacity, and Dancy is the first member of Team Law to be cast in the series. Joining Anderson on Team Order is newcomer Jeffrey Donovan, who we heard earlier this month would be playing a detective. NBC was oddly quiet about any details for Donovan’s character beyond that, so he might also be a spy. (That’s another crossover joke, this time about Burn Notice!)
There’s no word on Jeremy Sisto’s Detective Cyrus Lupo, who was Detective Kevin Bernard’s partner, but maybe Sisto was just waiting to see what Anderson did before he agreed to sign up. He’s on CBS’ FBI show, so he’s at least still in the Dick Wolf family.
With Anderson on board, though, we’re at least acknowledging for the first time that this will serve as a canonical continuation of the original Law & Order series rather than some kind of total reboot like all of those Spider-Man movies. We didn’t really think that would happen, but it would’ve been a compelling fan theory if NBC had failed to bring back any old Law & Order characters.
The new old Law & Order, which NBC is considering the 21st season of the original show, comes from showrunner Rick Eid. It’s set to premiere on NBC on February 24.
49 Comments
Sisto is a main character of FBI, along with Alana de la Garza, so I very much doubt we’ll be seeing Lupo and Rubirosa come back in any permanent capacity. Though it would be amusing to see them come back, since FBI actually does exist in the L&O universe (Hailey from Chicago PD showed up in an episode) despite being on a different network and Rubirosa actually joined the FBI after the parent show ended.
Slightly surprised Anderson is coming back. Dunno how I feel about that, because Dramatic Anthony Anderson just does not feel right, even all these years later.
I’m guessing Jeffery Donovan is going to be the EADA, which likely means Linus Roache (Cutter) ain’t coming back. Shame.
which likely means Linus Roache (Cutter) ain’t coming back. Shame.It’s good to have Anthony Anderson back and hopefully Sam Waterson will join up too, but Linus Roache was a highlight of the later years of L&O. I especially liked the scenes where Cutter and McCoy would butt heads.
I did not know about that but now I need Sisto and Rubirosa to come back to L&O. It actually makes sense, since they’re in the Dick Wolfiverse and he can just do that. My guess is Anthony Anderson will be the new Van Buren. And why wouldn’t Sam Waterston come back and play the DA again? He’s almost 80, he gets to live in New York and basically be semi-retired and make tons of money and he still has room to do other stuff.
I want to say that SVU promoted him to Attorney General, but I may be mis-remembering. But the DA is Schiff & Branch’s old job, which Jack took in the final few seasons. I’m talking about EADA, which is what Jack had before being promoted (i.e. the main character of the “Order” side).
Donovan’s gonna be one of the cops, isn’t he? Either partnered with Anderson, or under him if Anderon’s the new lieutenant. So there’s room for Roache to return.
Yup, Donovan is a gonna be a detective….Jeffrey Donovan, who we heard earlier this month would be playing a detective…
Alana de la Garza – Such a god damn gorgeous woman!
The problem won’t be dramatic Anthony Anderson, it’s that we’ll keep getting whipcuts to his beautiful momma Doris for the ‘comedy’ reactions.
Thought the same thing. A shame.. he certainly filled McCoy’s old shoes in that role well.
Anyone want to bet that Dancy will be doing his American accent for this? I’m thinking it’s about 99.9… ah fuck it, 100% certain.
100% an American accent. But what he should do is use his natural accent, refer to his position as “Crown Prosecutor,” wear a wig, and generally insist on practicing UK law to the consternation of his colleagues.
“Your honour, I humbly request we remove this wretch’s pantaloons and lash his bum 40 times, so that he may learn his lesson!”That’s the UK legal system, right?
I watched a bunch of episodes of the UK version of L&O and it’s amazing how the cop half of the show was basically lifted straight from the original episode (the UK version just remade US episodes, at least at first), and then they’d get to the Order half and it was just crazytown.
No original scripts for UK AFAIK. Too bad, that first series cast was ridiculous.
They wanna bring back this show properly? Putting aside issues with copaganda, etc… put the format back to what it was up until like 2010 or so. Give us “discover a dead body out of no where” from some rando at the cold open, first part of the show is the detective part, second part is the lawyer part. A “just the facts, ma’am” approach to the characters’ personal lives. That was the appeal from the start. It faltered when it was trying to become another CSI and added all the drama around each character. That’s not what makes the show interesting, it’s following the thread of the mystery.The best “Law & Order” episode done in recent memory, and the one that makes me miss the show, is the “Community” episode that parodied it.
the best law and order episode in recent memory* is when the avclub comments section wrote a pitch-perfect episode many years back. im sure all the site comment changes since have completely mangled or destroyed it*im sure, like community, it is now like 30 years ago
Maybe the greatest AV Club thread ever.
‘Twas a glorious thread, but damn that was a while back, in the day of unregistered comments, which was like five comment section formats ago. I know it was mostly preserved in Disqus though and I linked to that version in a comment on that article after the switch to Kinja, but couldn’t find the article through googling just now. I think it was something about Sam Waterston being cast in the Newsroom (perhaps before it even had a title)?side note: Jesus fucking Christ, the banner ads that keep popping up on the sides of my screen are making writing comments a nightmare
I don’t think you can expect that from DW anymore—-just about every show he’s been involved in developing over the past decade has been serialized with deep interpersonal character development.I agree that they cannot do that with the original L&O–if they try it will just be another “FBI” or “Chicago X” series with a legendary name.
Chicago Justice lasted one season. Wonder what viewership numbers were like.FBI International is so amateurish I wonder if it’ll get a second season.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t international the purview of the CIA?LOL
Well, if I’m not wrong, FBI agents can be assigned to work in American embassies abroad, but not the way this show does. That’s why the useless Interpol exists. The CIA only deals with gathering intelligence and information and establishing assets, not with solving crimes.
I liked a dash of personal conflict, like when Lennie and Ed would have issues with their addictions.
It took me a minute to remember that Ed was a gambling addict.
It took a few minutes for the writers to acknowledge it more than the first time, too!
They’ve actually had a number of episodes dealing with the character’s personal lives before the final season. Briscoe’s daughter was a running subplot, Ross kept trying to get custody of her kid, Logan took several episodes to warm up to Lenny, both Curtis and Green had their personal lives brought up often, and the Season 6 finale was entirely about character development. Not saying they shouldn’t go back to the old formula, but they weren’t all self-contained either.
Those were always small points interspersed into the greater plot of the show. We didn’t go to Ross’s house and see her break down into tears over it on the phone with her mom, for example.
Eh, Van Buren earned those scenes, given that she WAS trying to survive cancer. If it was Cutter or Lupo, it wouldn’t be all that effective, but the fact that we spent the last 15 years with Anita, seeing her struggle through a very real situation hit harder.
Also, McCoy having to deal with that corrupt politician in Season 19 was great, especially since we never really got to see Schiff and Branch leave their offices very often.
both Curtis and Green had their personal lives brought up oftenSpecifically, Curtis had a sick wife and Green had his gambling.
That’s true, but it was also a more limited aspect of the show than the steady episodic beats of the cases.
Gawd I loved those discovering the body cold opens. They were their own mini-dramas within the universe of the show, contributing the whole slice of life feel, and I enjoyed the more inspired ways they’d get to end point (e.g., window washers’ platform almost falls off the side of a building and they see a dead body in an office, old lady watering plants in her greenhouse finds the body of someone who jumped from a building in her tree, etc).
I went into a local convenience store that I visit frequently and none of the family members who run the store were anywhere to be found. I immediately thought of how many time L&O started with someone finding a body behind the counter of a bodega. Fortunately, the owner was just out back doing stuff. But, yeah, I was already preparing myself to find a corpse.
Jake Gyllenhaal was part of a fantastic Law and Order parody (Acting Class to be the fishmonger with three lines) on SNL a looong time ago (way before TSwift roasted him for 10 minutes straight)
Yup I love that one. Law & Order masterclass led by Amy Poehler’s character.
If we’re going by the images flashed up in the theme song, “Team Law” would have been the cops, and “Team Order” would have been the lawyers.
Bring back Jesse L. Martin you cowards
While they’ve skirted things pretty big on SVU, the way they sent Green off would make it very hard for him to come back as a detective. If Attorney Investigator was an actual job in the L&O universe, I could see him there, but that real-life position doesn’t exist in L&O, since they combined that with the ADA.
Isn’t that essentially the job Briscoe took on Trial by Jury?
If he wasn’t constantly busy I’d ask when they would book Mads Mikkelsen for an arc.
Anthony is the reason the show tanked in the first place. Also stop casting this actual rapist!!!
Serial rapist, to boot.
Scream it from the rooftops
Hopefully it turns into a secret Hannibal reboot.
I hope that the show has Anderson in a consistently serious role here. With his years on Black-Ish I think a lot of people assume he’s only done comedy over the years. They don’t know the earlier L&O stint and they don’t remember his role in the Leonardo DiCaprio Matt Damon movie.Elsewhere in the abandoned DW world— New York Undercover deserved a revisitation. They could have simply ignored the third season finale when the Torres character was killed. But then Malik Yoba faced a serious sex scandal and an interview that went sideways.. and I guess that’s that…
He had a great stint on The Shield too.
Dunno how well NY Undercover would do since a lot of the scripts got recycled for Chicago PD.
Jeffrey Donavan seems like the perfect casting choice for an L&O detective. He doesn’t have the most range as an actor, but one thing he’s consistently good at is doing the whole distant/sad/melancholy look off into the middle distance, his voice trailing off as he finishes a sentence, which is key for the trope of the grizzled detective dealing with the more horrific aspects of their job. It doesn’t traumatize them in the moment but they also aren’t completely dead to the horror they see in front of them.
Please tell me Black-ish isn’t canceled….
I believe it’s ending. This is the final season.