This idea started with two posts that I made today.
First, there was the L-style interrogation of Charlie on the TVGA forums. For those of you who don’t know, Charlie is a lich. No, really. He’s let it slip a couple of times, but he always comes back and denies it. But one day, I’m going to catch him red-handed, just like L thinks he’s going to catch Light Yagami in Deathnote.
OK, since he’s undead, it’ll probably be more like gray- or green-handed. But still, I’m going to catch him one day, and then I’m gonna destroy his phylactery. Like Light and Sasuke and Peter Griffin, force is the only thing a despot like Charlie the Lich King understands.
The second post I made was on The Sommelier’s then-unpublished Great Moments in Television History article. In it, he describes the perfect TV show idea: a cop drama that is set inside a grocery store. The same grocery store. Every episode, for the entire episode. Yeah, it sucks, but times are tough and we’ve got a writer’s strike. Don’t complain. Back in my day we didn’t have TV shows. They’d mail us a series of photos every week, and we’d have to staple them into a flipbook.
Anyway, I suggested that he pitch his idea as a Law and Order spin-off. Also, if he’s lucky, Sam Waterston could be a guest star.
If Sam Waterston was a guest star, perhaps we could use that contact to get him to be a spokesman prophet for the Church of the Immortal Robot Reagan. It would be brilliant. Who would you be more apt to believe, Tom Cruise or Sam Waterston? If you said Tom Cruise, you’re either a filthy liar or you’re a couch-jumping madman.
Anyway, the perfect idea for a TV show then hit me: Law and Order: Deathnote. But this is not a low-budget show like The Sommelier’s grocery store detective show. This is a show that is dependent upon perfect casting.
For this show to work, police investigators involved in the case must be played by Sam Waterston, Mariska Hargitay, Christopher Meloni, Jesse L. Martin, and Richard Belzer. Cameos by other members of the past and present cast may also occur.
It would be nice if we could resurrect Jerry Orbach for a role as well. The man was Law and Order for years (well, at least half of Law and Order), and it just ain’t the same anymore. Charlie, this is where you come in, because I’ll pay you good money to make this happen. You don’t even have to admit you’re a lich*. You can just say you happened to take a few low-level necromancy courses at the local technical school. There’s no law against that.
Also, Peter Falk must be one of the investigators, despite having no previous role on a Law and Order show. He’s freaking Columbo. And Columbo is five times the investigator that L will ever be.
Despite all of the work done by L and the rest of the investigators, Peter Falk will show them up and solve the case. He will do this by asking a couple of pointed questions to Light early in the show, who will be very obviously angry and uncooperative. Columbo will then do some snooping, and ask a couple of “just one more thing” questions to catch Light in a lie. Not a complicated web of lies like L tries to do, but a single, pivotal, incriminating lie. He will seal the deal out of nowhere in the last ten minutes of the series, much to the surprise of everyone else.
It really doesn’t matter who plays L, so long as there’s a five minute scene in each episode where Sam Waterston lectures him about how his unconventional methods won’t hold up in court, and how his flagrant disregard for due process is going to sink the case. Sam Waterston will, of course, be right.
If L’s character could be aged by a couple of decades, then Vincent d’Onofrio would be the obvious choice.
By The Robbins Law of Law and Order Guest Stars (which states that celebrity guest stars are always the criminal), the actors who portray Light and Misa must be the most prominent guest stars in the show. I’m not really sure who would play them. It doesn’t matter. We’ll all know they’re guilty as soon as we see the opening credits.
Ryuuk will be played by Dave Coulier doing the Bullwinkle voice. Do not question this.
* This may actually be a ploy to get you to admit you’re a lich.
RSS Feed
Podcast
Twitter
Facebook
YouTube Videos