On 25 May it was announced that Saffron Burrows was leaving THE FiNDER before it began production. But not until after she appeared in the pilot which was broadcast on 21 April as the 125th episode of BONES.

Normally you would think that a cast member leaving would not be a big deal. Just look at Law & Order Criminal Intent and its revolving cast. Saffron Burrows happens to be a former cast member of that show too. Here’s where it gets complicated. In THE FiNDER the home base of the main character is the middle-of-nowhere bar that is tended by and presumably owned by Saffron Burrows’ character. Replacing her character and retaining the bar would be like putting Alfred Pennyworth at The Fortress Of Solitude as Clark Kent’s advisor. Replacing her character and relocating the show to a new home base would be like creating Lionel Luthor and finding a reason for Lex Luthor to be in Smallville with a bunch of teenagers that isn’t criminally perverse. The other options are to downplay the existence of the existence of the pilot and hope people who did see it forget about it or to find someone who looks and sounds so much like Saffron Burrows that they can do a ‘soap opera’ recasting of the role after it has gone to broadcast.

None of those options are particularly appealing. Just when there was cause to give Saffron Burrows another chance she goes and does this shit. THE FiNDER showed promise as a fun procedural. Now it is more like pending implosion. And unlike with Law & Order Criminal Intent there are no original cast members to bring back to take her place. She was the last of the 3 principal characters cast and she only lasted 3.4 months. Could this be the first signs that The FiNDER will itself become lost to the page on Wikipedia of shows cancelled after 1 episode or before an episode is broadcast (hard to pick given the back-door pilot).

There comes a time when it is hard to keep a secret. Sometimes it is a simple 2+2+969+27=1000 that we just don’t pay attention to. That is what it appears was done with Law & Order : LA. The episode shown on Wednesday of this week marks the last episode that was produced in the show. What NBC is showing from now through 27 June are the episodes of Law & Order Los Angeles that were made with Skeet Ulrich that were to be shown starting on 28 February after the hiatus – a hiatus that was extended to April and saw the show change such that Skeet’s character, Detective Winters, was killed off.

Here is the simple math. NBC showed 8 episodes of Law & Order Los Angeles before pulling it. NBC showed7 episodes of Law & Order : LA before announcing it was cancelled. NBC showed a further 2 episodes of Law & Order : LA in the week after announcing it was cancelled. That is 8+7+2=17. But the season is 22 episodes and NBC & Wolf Productions have been adamant that it would be 22.

Now it is clear that those 5 are coming from episodes that were made with Skeet before deciding to kill him off. Since the show is not returning it matters little to mess with the chronology of living/dead characters. What if Law & Order : LA had been renewed? Where would those 5 episodes be coming from? Read the rest of this entry »