Leno’s out but in, Conan’s out but probably not for long, and NBC is out of excuses for screwing up so badly. And yes, the Olympics filled that hole at 10 p.m. with gold for a bit of time, but the clock just ran out.
So what’s a network to do with a giant hole in its schedule?
Cry “Wolf!” of course — as in Dick Wolf, who’s been bringing home the other big gold for NBC for 20 years now.
So, tonight, don’t think your remote is broken and stuck on USA when you see not one but two episodes of “Law & Order” back-to-back on NBC.
And the good news is they won’t be reruns either.
These are two fresh-out-of-the-box, never-before-seen episodes. At 9 p.m., they’re serving up an episode called “Steel-Eyed Death,” about a 16-year-old accused Goth, spree-killing amnesiac and her accused Goth, spree-killing boyfriend.
Well, maybe she’s a spree killer, but who knows since she has no memory.
Bonnie (Emily Meade) is a 16-year-old runaway who claims to have no recollection of who/what/where/when or how she ended up in NYC in the horror/goth scene. What she does remember is that she was in her friend’s apartment when her friend and her entire family were slashed to death by, well, not her.
But it’s when Lupo (Jeremy Sisto) has his own memory lapse and realizes the defense attorney is someone from his past, we find out a huge amount about his own back story.
Then, at 10, be sure the kids are in bed or busy hacking the Pentagon in their rooms or something, because the second episode, “Boy on Fire,” is brutal. I mean really brutal. And yes, it’s about a kid who is set on fire, which is video-taped by other kids on their cell phones and passed around like a cell phone snuff film.
Remember that cute, nice, smart kid Oliver (Aaron Shaw) from “In Treatment?” Well, he’s the cute, nice, smart kid here, too.
He plays Moses, who has a chance to get into a charter school — and then all hell (literally) breaks loose.
But wait! Guess who plays the principal — done up in bun, glasses, long scarf, the whole bit?
Hey — is that Debra Winger? I had to rub my eyes about 60 times to make sure I was seeing straight.
This is a woman who used to get nominated for Oscars as often as I go on diets — every year.
God, she’s good. We can only hope that Winger takes flight again and does a Sally Field/Glenn Close move soon on to TV. The big screen doesn’t appreciate women once they’re no longer “Maxim” material. But they’re magic on television.
Yes, despite what the geniuses who run the networks think, older, stronger women have always dominated TV — the suits just don’t notice. But, then again, if they were right about a whole lot of stuff, we wouldn’t be having two episodes of “L&O” tonight to fill the stupidity gap at NBC.