D!ck Wolf "ain't going away"

[Bob Jersey]

His next conquest? Streaming, leading off with totally-unrelated-to-his-other-franchises On Call, coming Thursday to Prime Video (their one remaining NFL game is part of Super Wild Card Weekend! next Sat. or Sun.):

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/04/business/media/dick-wolf-on-call-amazon-prime.html?unlocked_article_code=1.mk4.dKYu.eZw6y6MpoQ1v&smid=url-share (link, use your own $ubs after 7 days)

B

[PGage]

I discovered over the holidays that all seasons of the original Law and Order are now streaming on Hulu (For a long time, you could only see the more recent, crap-year episodes on Peacock, and the earlier seasons could only be had by paying for them one at a time from Amazon). 

These early seasons are reminding me of two things: 1) that the first 5 to 7 seasons were so much better than what came later (I was truly impressed with the effort and attention to detail that went into I think a season two opener with complex camera angles, editing, plotting and dialogue, which is amazing compared to the warmed over, by the numbers retreads we get in the last 15 years or so of the show) But also 2) Even the best seasons were never really all that great. Wolf likes to think he’s exploring cutting edge, controversial issues, giving equal weight to both sides, but he almost never really does and while there are occasional episodes on bad apple police corruption or Maleficence, It’s mostly a long love letter to police and prosecuting cultures. I have not watched any of his Chicago shows, and the only other L&O I have any affection or respect for is criminal intent on which they pulled the plug too soon. I confess to watching FBI (but not the spinoffs), but that is clearly a guilty pleasure.

Despite Wolf’s claims I’m not sure how revolutionary or groundbreaking this new show is going to be. But it does remind me of what I think was the idea behind the structure of law and order when it first came out, which was that syndication would prefer two 30- minute shows rather than a single hour, so they thought they would have the police part be a 30 minute show on one day and the prosecution finale be part two on the next day. I’m not sure if that ever had a chance to work, though it’s kind of the structure of the original Batman TV show, but in the event, while L&O  did become very successful in Syndication I don’t think it ever was presented as 2-30 minute shows. 

Characteristically, Dick Wolf is pretending that a 30 minute drama is some kind of new idea for the streaming age and short attention spans of a TikTok generation (Though he does acknowledge Dragnet and Adam-12 which have always been the spirit animals of his shows), but I suspect this new show  is just more warmed over Wolfism, in structure and content.

Sent from Gmail Mobile

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tvornottv+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/531aea50-c509-4252-87e6-a365fa07daf5n%40googlegroups.com.

[Kevin M.]

Wolf prides himself on the formulaic system by which he makes media. The biggest insult I could sling his way is simply this: AI could do what he does. That’s how bad he is at what he does. 

Kevin M. (RPCV)

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkYJTCsbix4cxufMzpKMtcdqEKEJ%3DjUD0o5d5HiA8tXgiZQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[JW]

> But it does remind me of what I think was the idea
> behind the structure of law and order when it first came out, which was
> that syndication would prefer two 30- minute shows rather than a single
> hour, so they thought they would have the police part be a 30 minute show

> on one day and the prosecution finale be part two on the next day.

I think that was right at the end of the era where local stations were the prime syndication market, rather than cable, and the stations preferred half-hours. But by the time they actually started syndicating L&O, they were selling to cable outfits with many hours to fill.