What the Hell? How why is "Dick" censored? How do you post things about Cheney et. al? And why does TV.com strip out or replace Unicode characters? Bleh! The proper title of this article, with true quote marks should be

"Limp Dick"

I have a bad feeling that the Law and Order franchise is coming to an end.

Last season, after almost 20 years, NBC pushed Law and Order to mid-season, and they're doing it again this season. Two seasons in a row of being banished to mid-season as a fill-in show. That is not a good sign.

To be fair, the show has not been too good since Orbach died, and they started having a turnstile of turn-over. Too much change, too fast is always bad for shows, and this show has had it in spades. Is there no respect for seniority? Did NBC treat Saturday Night Live like this in its many bad seasons? Is FOX treating Simpsons like this?

Criminal Intent is also going down. It was taken off of NBC altogether a while ago and banished to satellite-land. Foreigners had to hope that a local network would carry it, otherwise they were out of luck; like all Americans who did not have DirecTV. NBC brought it back for a while during the summer but again that was as a fill-in and they're putting it on USA again this season instead of NBC.

Things don't look good for the show with the departure of Noth, and the killing-off of Nicole Wallace-arguably the best parts of the show-it probably won't last much longer either. I know that Goran has his fans (for some reason), but he's been spiraling down recently too, with all kinds of unpleasant, and not universally popular changes to the character.

Special Victims Unit is the best of the franchise. It has always been so exciting and had a wonderful cast. In fact, unlike most shows (it's siblings included), this show not only had a large ensemble cast, it actually continued to grow. Every L&O show's opening credits ends with a shot of the main cast walking. Last season, SVU's cast was so big (nine principals), that they could barely all fit on the screen (even in wide-screen). Of course they couldn't have nine people walking and talking, so they just stand there leaning on a desk and looking serious (in fact that's how it's been for several seasons because they've had a large cast for a while now).

However, even SVU is sinking. While it's been great and has had little turnover compared to its siblings, it's had too much change too quickly recently. Lake got himself into trouble and left after just one season. If that's not bad enough, both Tutuola and Novak have said that they are going. Those are pretty important characters. If they go, the show will be in a fair amount of trouble.

Dick Wolf also had a few other, related shows, but those did pretty bad and ended quickly. Trial By Jury didn't last a whole season, and Conviction ended on a great two-parter, but still ended after a half season. His Dragnet remake made it to nearly two half seasons, but faired no better. He just hasn't had much success in quite a while. His carte blanch may be soiled and his time in the sun could be over unless he can come up with a great, new show, and/or fix up his existing ones.

For what it's worth, he's not the only one. There have been several show-makers who had one or two hits and seemed like everything that they touched turned to gold and thus were given lots of leeway, but then crashed. Look at J.J. Abrams.

I hope it's not the end because if solid, established shows and creators can get axed, then what chance to new ones have? Dick Wolf has done some good shows and it would be a shame if they failed now.

Yes I know; that title may be a little esoteric for most people to get.

Anyway, I don't know how people become editors for stuff. There just isn't enough information to submit. There's a couple of shows that aren't very popular (that I watch nonetheless, surprise, surprise). There's nobody bothering to submit anything for them, so I do. I figure they're my best shot at getting editorship of something, just for the sake of seeing what it's like for a bit (although I don't care for the responsibilty and work that comes with it).

Even so, it's friggin' hard to get enough stuff submitted (even with recaps and episode submissions) to get even close.

Meh, I don't really care; I lost respect for this site when they turned it into a game with levels, points, decals, et. al. I wonder if anyone is selling high-level accounts like they do with World of Warcraft accounts. Hmmm, I wonder if there are any magical swords or gold in TV.com…

I would have mentioned this a while ago, but meh.

This summer there were not too many movies that came to DVD (especially in August which was really light, there was maybe one or two that didn't suck all month, and September doesn't have much more). As a result I had some extra time for once and decided to give a few shows that I had heard a lot about, yet didn't watch because I thought they were lame a go. I was not disappointed.

I watched the first three seasons of The Hills. I didn't realize it was a "reality show", (and I still don't think it is). Either way, I did not expect to like it at all. The first two seasons were entertaining, but the third got a little cumbersome (and way too noisy with that damned, way-too-loud, same-as-all-the-rest music). Season four is so-so.

I also watched the first season of Gossip Girl. Wow, I really liked it and was not bored in the least. I don't know if it was that the show was great or that I did some origami while watching (I can't stand to do only one thing at any given moment), but I certainly did not expect to like it so much. Season two is starting out pretty good too. xoxo

Finally, I watched the first season of Greek. This was yet another show that I was surprised about how much I liked. It took a while to get used to who's who and what's what because I don't usually pay attention to peripheral information like phone-numbers, house letters, etc. but I got enough to enjoy the show. The first half was quite fun, but the second got a little bit tedious to watch. The second season is starting out okay.

While each show is a surprise, the overall effect is not. I've known for some time now that the lower my expectations, the more I think I'll hate a show, the better the chances that I'll actually end up liking it. And it makes sense too; if you expect utter rubbish, more often than not, it can't be any worse that that, so anything is an improvement. So that's the key, expect new things to be crap, and you'll never be disappointed.