So finally Jerry Orbach (Detective Lenny Briscoe) bows out of Law and Order, and who do they replace him with? A woman? A gay character? An ethnic character? All three might be pushing it a bit -- I'm not a fan of the shows that bung in a token lesbian Hispanic among their 10 other straight whities just so they can point proudly to Officer Vasquez and her African-American girlfriend to show how 'diverse' they are -- but one of the three would have been nice…

Alas, that's not what we get. Instead we have Dennis Farina as Detective Joe Fontana, a hardline, old-school investigator who clashes with the more up-to-date and sympathetic Detective Green, played by Jesse L Martin. Who at least is black. I am so bummed with L&O I can't tell you. For those who, unlike me, are not completely addicted to L&O, here's a brief summary of why I'm so cross.

L&O has a terrible, terrible record of casting loads of ugly white guys with a mere sprinkling of ethnic and female characters. Not only that -- practically every single main female character has been skinny and gorgeous, a rule that naturally doesn't apply to the blokes. With the exception of the stunningly handsome Benjamin Bratt (wipe drool from lips), none of the men has been male-model-status eye-candy. And yet we've had Jill Hennessy, Carey Lowell (an ex-Bond girl), Angie Harmon (ex-model) and now Elisabeth Rohm as the assistant prosecutors, cueing an endless stream of comments on how attractive they are -- people they investigate are always asking them if they want to model (Lowell), engage in threesomes with them (Lowell again) or mistaking them for girls who want to audition as strippers (Rohm). Somehow this never happens to Jesse or Benjamin…

Yes, we have the fantastic S Epatha Merkeson (what's with that name, S Epatha??) playing Lieutenant Anita Van Buren, a plus-size black woman with a posh-sounding name in charge of the precinct… but this is in itself a cop-out, seeing as there's such a tradition of bunging a black character in to play the boss in cop shows to demonstrate that the creators aren't racist. It was beautifully parodied fifteen years ago in the fantastic show 'Sledgehammer', with the perpetually angry black lieutenant shouting out and threatening to suspend Sledgehammer, the hero, but twinkling at him by the end when he'd accidentally solved the latest case.

And yes, L&O is moving ahead slightly in the anti-racist stakes: we did have the Latino Benjamin, and now there's Jesse. Of course, there was the black Richard Brooks playing Paul Robinette (another sidekick, as he was the assistant DA to Ben Stone) but I don't quite count Robinette so much as he had this lousy tendency to bang on all the time about being black, which frankly in my book makes someone a Token rather than a Real Person. It's fantastic to see a black (or a gay, or an Asian, etc etc) character on a show like this - but if they're written as being super-self-conscious about their racial identity, it rather vitiates the point. Much better to just see someone from a minority getting on with their job without having to point out every five seconds that they're a minority - it's a much more positive and subtle statement about progress.

So, Jerry Orbach -- an old white guy (who, btw, has had HUGE amounts of plastic surgery, the skin around his eyes looks positively shiny now it's been stretched so much)-- leaves. What a fantastic opportunity to bring in a WOMAN WHO DOESN'T HAVE A SKINNY-MINNIE BODY. Because right now on L&O the only woman out of the main four (two detectives, two DAs) is Rohm, a skinny blonde. And instead we get Farina, whose banter is lame and whose character is such a stereotype that S Epatha and Jesse look deeply bored having to go through the motions of being annoyed with him.

Let me just recap the casting of L&O Through the Ages:

Cast 1:

MAN: EADA Ben Stone (white, not handsome)
MAN: Assistant DA Paul Robinette (black - see above - with really weird haircut)
MAN: Detective Max Greevey (George Dzundza) (white, old and fat)
MAN: Detective Michael Logan) (Chris Noth) (white but at least good-looking then, before he porked out)
MAN: DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill) (white, old, fat)
MAN: Captain Donald Cragen (Dann Florek) (white, old, baldy)

Cast 2:

Same, only with:

MAN: Detective Phil Cerreta (Paul Sorvino) (white, old, fat)

Cast 3:

Same, only with:

MAN: Detective Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) (white, old, though not without a twinkle in his eye)

Cast 4:

WOMAN: Finally! The lovely Jill Hennessy as ADA Claire Kincaid . Apparently Robinette was sacked so that L&O could incorporate more women into the show. Duh. However, notice the shabbiness of sacking the one black character so that they could replace him with another minority. Not very pretty. Still, Cragen gets sacked too so they can bring in Van Buren, a black woman. Still only one black character on the show for now, and no Hispanics or Asians. Tchah. But at least Van Buren doesn't have a perfect (by TV standards) body. One small step for womankind…

Cast 5:

MAN: EADA Jack Mcoy (Sam Waterston) replaces Ben Stone. Sam at least is jolly sexy in his way.

Cast 6:

WOMAN: Carey Lowell (ex-model, Bond girl) takes over from Jill Hennessy, playing ADA Jamie Ross.

MAN: Detective Reinaldo Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) replaces Chris Noth and the women of America rejoice. He's Hispanic, young and hot! Hooray! Finally L&O are figuring out that we want some eye candy too, damnit!

Cast 7:

WOMAN: Angie Harmon (ex-model) takes over from ex-model Carey Lowell as ADA Abbie Carmichael. Hmm. See a pattern anywhere? Angie was great - but her last show before L&O was 'Baywatch Nights'.Did L&O cast her primarily for her acting chops? Extra hmm…

WOMAN: Yeah! Dianne Wiest takes over as DA Nora Lewin! We have three, count 'em, three women on the show, and Wiest doesn't have a perfect body either! But her character is written as a soft-hearted law professor and isn't that interesting. She is clearly going to get the chop soonish. Yawn.

Cast 9:

MAN: It was never going to last. Dianne Wiest is out and Fred Dalton Thompson is in as DA Arthur Branch (white, fat, old). Dalton Thompson is fantastic, but how many old fat white dudes does this show need??

WOMAN: ADA Serena Southerlyn (Elisabeth Rohm) replaces Angie Harmon. Yet another slim gorgeous white chick. Aren't there any Asian actresses out there who could have played this part? Um… I guess they weren't even auditioned for it.

MAN: Detective Edward Green (Jesse L Martin) replaces Benjamin Bratt. Obviously this is now the casting slot dedicated to hot youngish ethnic actors as Martin is African-American and deeply cute. I mean, God forbid we should have a Latino/Asian and a black character on the show at the same time. But progress is def. being made.

And now, drum roll, Cast 10:

MAN: Yes, as Briscoe bows out, we have a fantastic opportunity for someone genuinely different to take his place. Gay? Asian? Female? Nah… I have nothing against Farina personally, though his face does look like it's been repeatedly hit with a frying pan. But Lord, I'm bored with his character and his schtick already and I've only seen 3 episodes with him. And everyone else seems bored too.

I hear that Rohm is going to leave the series too mid-season, and I can only hope that she won't be replaced by yet another skinny pretty chick. But of course she will… because no show like this is complete without its skinny pretty chick nowadays. Wouldn't it have been great if the gap left by Briscoe's departure had been filled by the skinny pretty chick, thus making the s.p.c. a cop - there's a really cute Hispanic female officer on the show who Green flirts with who could have been promoted? And then the Assistant DA slot could have been taken by someone different? A gay guy? A gay girl? Ah well, we can but dream. And write lots of cross emails to Dick Wolf, the head honcho of L&O. If you can find the address. I've been searching on the Net (or, as Dick Cheney would put it, 'the Internets' ) for ages and can't find any way to contact L&O…

Wonder why?