"Law & Order" Rips Off Its Own Headline
So, you're all sitting there wondering how the recently concluded writers strike is gonna be reflected on the TV screen over the next few weeks?
I can think of no better example than the one I am about to relay - ripped from the headlines, so to speak, and roaring (also so to speak) to a TV show near you in the not-too-distant future.
It involves "Law & Order" - TV's greatest headline larcenist - and its gifted veteran show-runner, Rene Balcer.
Here's the story. Early this year, during the dimmest days of the strike, Balcer was walking the picket lines outside the front gates of Fox studio lot when some moron in a shark-skin suit who was behind the wheel of an 8,000 SUV decided to teach Balcer a lesson - he ran into him. Not hard enough to do any damage, but hard enough to inflict the fear of God and SUVs into Balcer. The guy got out of the car, and a good old fashioned brawl ensued. Cameras - unfortunately - were not present, but in my imagination, Balcer decked the guy, strapped him to the roof of his SUV, and then put a large brick on the accelerator... Buh-bye shark-skin suit moron and SUV...
That last part actually didn't happen. I made it up. Sorry. But Balcer is going to exact cold revenge over the hit-and-run incident (another reason why it's never a good idea to pick a fight with someone who runs a major TV production...)
Rene told me last week that "I'm ripping from my own headline" by producing a strike episode that'll feature some "very obnoxious loudmouth picketer" who is killed while walking the picket lines...
The picketer's actually a legal aid who's on strike, and after all these legal aides go on strike, defense attorneys are dragooned into doing their work - so there's some very unhappy people all around, which means "motive."
Says Balcer, "one of the strikers gets run over, coincidentally - it never happens in real life [though.]"
He says he was inspired by David Letterman, who included Balcer in his monologue the night he got hit: "The day the thing happened, he mentioned in his monologue that a writer for 'Law & Order' got hit, and then said - 'you know what? It would be a terrific 'Law & Order.'"
Rene says he knows who the guy was - a lower-level suit - and he assured me: "It wasn't Peter Chernin."