Why Cable Beats The Crap Out Of Broadcast Television
Another year, another Assistant District Attorney who looks like a supermodel. I may not spend a great deal of time around courthouses, but I am willing to bet the real life ratio of supermodel ADAs to non-supermodel ADAs is lower than Law & Order's 100%.
Let's see if I can name them all. There was Diane Neal, Stephanie March, Angie Harmon, Elisabeth Rohm, Jill Hennessy, Carey Lowell, Annie Parisse, Alana De La Garza and now Michaela McManus. Have I left any beauties out? Throw in hottie detectives Julianne Nicholson, Connie Nielsen, Annabella Sciorra, Milena Govich and Alicia Witt and the Law & Order courtroom is a place most criminals would kill to get into. Heck. Who wouldn't want to be handcuffed to Julianne Nicholson? Fortunately I have the image of a face to face with Fred Thompson to keep me on the right side of the law.
Law & Order, of course, is far from the only broadcast TV program guilty of casting with its, um, dick. In fact, ALL of broadcast television is guilty of this nonsense. Remember the cops on NYPD Blue? The guys looked like Sipowicz. But the women? Hamana Hamana!
Broadcast executives would have you believe that cable is stealing their thunder because they have more latitude in the area of sex and violence; that they can bring more gritty realism to the mix on cable. Well, isn't part of this grit and realism tied to the casting choices?
Does anyone believe that broadcast TV executives would have cast James Gandolfini and Edie Falco as the leads had The Sopranos been on NBC? More likely we would have seen John Stamos and his ex wife Rebecca Romijn as Tony and Carm. How about all of the wonderful character actors who made Deadwood so much fun to watch? They would have been banished by focus groups and replaced by the cast of the O.C. Hooray, hot teens and tumbleweeds!
That's not to say there's something wrong with casting attractive people. There are many strong actors who are attractive and, as a former marketing executive, I am well aware of the appeal of, well, of appeal. But casting ONLY attractive people? How can you depict the seedy side of an imperfect world when everyone looks perfect? I know. It's show business. Willing suspension of belief and all that. Well, I'm willing to suspend my belief, but do I have to be completely brain dead?
Cable crime shows like The Wire and The Shield make network cop shows look like Howdy Doody. Once you've seen them, it's next to impossible to go back. The cops look like cops. The criminals look like criminals. Almost no one looks like they'll be walking down a catwalk any time soon.
