Whither Paul and George? (not the Beatles...)

January 23, 2006 2:24 PM

Law and Order: TOS: TNT runs approximately a million episodes a week. Why do they never show espisodes from pre-1992? (Episodes with Paul Sorvino and/or George Dzundza as Chris Noth's first partners)

There must be a good reason -- Paul and George don't seem to be sharing in the gravy train that is residuals...

posted by crickets to media & arts (12 comments total)

Well, those episodes did kind of suck, if you ask me. Especially the George Dzundza ones. Other channels (up in Canada at least, Bravo and A&E) do include those episodes in their normal rotation.
posted by loquax at 2:30 PM on January 23, 2006

I have seen those episodes from time to time. They were quite good, by the way. But you have to wait a long time.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:37 PM on January 23, 2006

Heh... Sorvino is in the episode I'm watching right now.

Never mind.
posted by crickets at 3:13 PM on January 23, 2006

I've been downloading the first season from iTunes and many of those episodes are fantastic. I'd refer you to "Everybody's Favorite Bagman," "Out of the Half-Light," and "Subterranean Homeboy Blues."

Just a guess, but cable syndicators seem to think that newish episodes are more relevant, so they will tend to scrape the boundary of episodes that they are legally entitled to distribute. That's why you're seeing lots of the Dennis Farina episodes being shown nowadays.
posted by Saucy Intruder at 3:21 PM on January 23, 2006

crickets - I know you already said "nevermind," but I just thought I'd say that I turned TNT on the other day and Paul Sorvino was in the episode I saw.
posted by Third at 3:30 PM on January 23, 2006

You know, every flight I've been on in the last month (all eight of them) has included someone watching Law & Order on an iPod.

I hadn't put two and two together to figure out they were downloading them from iTunes.

/stupid aside.
posted by FlamingBore at 3:38 PM on January 23, 2006

They used to show them in order, by time slot (so all the, say 3pm daily ones would be in order, and all the 4pm daily ones would be in order, but would have started at a different point), so I think its possible that they just aren't at an "early episodes" point in the rotation.

Also, the first season was released in 2002, and then there was a loonnnggg pause (almost two years) until season 2 was released. I think its possible that they think that the DVD sales cut into the ratings of the reruns, although since Law & Order in TNT is really a "hey, this looks good" kind of show, I can't imagine that's actually true.
posted by anastasiav at 3:42 PM on January 23, 2006

I would honestly say this most likely has something to do with the sheer volume of episodes, and making it applicable to the current crowd.

Frankly, anyone who's gotten into the show in the last 3 years is going to want to watch Chris Noth, and it'll be difficult to relate with absolutely none of the same characters.

And if the episodes they're currently running (I haven't seen them) don't have any of the same characters, then I'm going back to the volume discussion—they're into practically their 16th season, right? It's just like the Simpsons. Once in awhile, they might gear up the rotation and go.

In fact, for a long while, A&E was playing them all relatively chronologically from the beginning. I'm pretty certain I've seen almost every episode through season 10+. I haven't stayed quite as on it lately, but whenever I have a free moment and it's on TiVo, I certainly watch it.

But yeah, the pasty white ADA and the young black ADA never did it for me. Lenny Briscoe, though... damn, Jerry Orbach was legendary. And Sam Waterston has been cranking them out as well.

I love how you could easily chart the timeframes of each of the characters. Adam Schiff was the longest running character, but S. Epatha Merkerson's character could definitely take over. Sorry to threadjack; I'm something of a Law & Order nerd...
posted by disillusioned at 5:59 PM on January 23, 2006

See also When Is Law & Order On?
posted by Saucy Intruder at 7:08 PM on January 23, 2006

This drives me crazy too - I'm only interested in the earliest episodes, since they are the best.
posted by agregoli at 7:54 AM on January 24, 2006

The number of available episodes definitely is a factor here. Dzunda was in the 1st season only Sorvino was in season 2 and part of 3. Noth was seasons 1-6. With 15 seasons worth of material to work with, you're going to have some long gaps where you don't see any old school L&O.

I also think TNT's scheduling decisions make this more noticable. They don't run things in chronological order and they seem to run the last 3-4 seasons more often then anything else. It's probably due in part to the idea that the recent stuff will be more popular, but there was something else I noticed -

When TNT first started broadcasting in HD, they did a really bad job of reformatting L&O and some of their older programming for the 16:9 aspect ratio. They must have gotten a lot of complaints because they pulled the old episodes that weren't originally broadcast in HD entirely from the schedule for a while. Then they gradually started to show up again, this time with remastered versions that weren't stretched and distorted. I think the entire series is back in the rotation, but there was a period of a few months where they were only broadcasting the most recent episodes.
posted by cnelson at 8:30 AM on January 24, 2006

Other channels (up in Canada at least, Bravo and A&E) do include those episodes in their normal rotation.

Right now Bravo is running those first season episodes weeknights between 10 and 11.

I saw one with a very young Cynthia Nixon in it (she's Miranda on Sex and the City - the redheaded one). Nixon had baaaad eighties blond hair and chubby cheeks. As Chris Noth (who was also on SATC) brought in her into the office, George Dzunda's character asked, "Has she been Miranda'd?" Heh.
posted by orange swan at 8:47 AM on January 24, 2006