‘Law & Order’ Spawns Another Franchise Series

Just two months ago, a newspaper drama called “Deadline” was shooting on South Street in Lower Manhattan. Although most critics and viewers deemed it not a good show, what “Deadline” inarguably had going for it was a world-class view. Below the production office windows flowed the East River, and Brooklyn lay a mile beyond.

“Deadline” was unceremoniously buried weeks ago, but Dick Wolf, its creator, knew a good thing when he saw it.

In a few weeks, another Wolf show will begin shooting at the same site, the former headquarters of the New York Post. The new show, however, stands a markedly better chance of survival, swell view or not. By pedigree alone, it should become one of the hallmark shows of the 2001-02 season and the continuation of one of the more novel experiments in all of prime-time television. Namely, can one hit continue to spawn new hits? NBC is betting that the answer is “yes.” And so, of course, is Wolf.

“Law & Order: Criminal Intent”--starring the respected, if not particularly well-known screen actor Vincent D’Onofrio--is not merely recycling a view and one of the most durable TV titles. Wolf has also tapped Rene Balcer as one of the show’s executive producers.

True “L&O;” aficionados should recognize the name. Balcer was executive producer of “the mother show” from 1996 until last year, which were arguably the best years of its worthy life. (“L&O;” won its only best drama Emmy the first year Balcer was the top producer.)

Balcer’s partner is Fred Berner, one of New York’s top independent filmmakers (“Pollock,” “The Great White Hype”).

Landing Balcer was a neat trick, even by Wolf’s standards. After “L&O;,” Balcer (pronounced “Bal-say”; he’s Canadian by birth) had signed one of those cushy production deals that allow the newly enriched scribe to retire to Tahiti. Balcer created a show (“Hopewell”) for CBS, but the network decided to recast it. Balcer had time on his hands. And then Wolf called.

“I feel like Al Pacino in ‘Godfather III’--just when I thought I was out, they suck me back,” says Balcer, laughing. “I always had a good relationship with Dick. I was not going back to the original. Been there. Done that. This was an idea that really intrigued me--the opportunity to tell the story from the point of view of the criminal.”

“Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” launched last season and, after a rough start (in an awkward time period), has become one of NBC’s top-rated dramas as well as a Friday anchor for the network. But the show is not exactly a spinoff of “L&O;”; both share a name, and that’s about it. And viewers can expect the same with “Criminal Intent.”

“Basically I consider the show a brand,” Wolf says. “This is a very logical extension, as different from “Law & Order” as ‘Special Victims.’ But it is going to have many of those ‘Law & Order’ [touches]--the music and everything that goes along with it, and it will look like a ‘Law & Order’ franchise.”

Nevertheless, the title alone suggests that Wolf & Co. have some radically different tricks up their sleeves. As Balcer explains, “We’re gonna be spending time with the criminals. The first part of the show, the first five to seven minutes, will be told from [the perspective] of one of the major participants in the crime--that could be the criminal or the victim, or a major witness. . . . By the end of those first five or six minutes, we may have met the criminal, though we cannot know it was the criminal, and see the events leading up to the commission of the crime. Some weeks we’ll know who [the bad guy] is, and some weeks we won’t. There will always be information left out.”

Sounds tricky--which, of course, is the whole idea. What Wolf and Balcer want to do is play mind games with the audience, or as Wolf puts it: “We’re not going to show everything, but I think that part of the trick is to give the audience enough information so they can be sitting here watching a situation unfold and say [to the investigating cops] ‘No, no, don’t go there. . . .”

As usual, Wolf and Balcer are tapping the vast resources of the New York City Police Department. “CI” is based loosely on its elite Major Cases Squad, which has jurisdiction over all other squads in the five boroughs. D’Onofrio’s character is a first-grade detective named Goren, a specialist in forensic psychology, and something of an obsessive kook. He arrives at crime scenes armed with hundreds of questions, which he throws at witnesses or whoever happens to be in his line of fire. He thus builds a detailed psychological profile of the criminal; Andy Sipowicz he is not.

Without question, D’Onofrio is an intriguing choice. (Other cast members, including Goren’s partner and the squad chief, have yet to be announced.) He was--literally--the heavy in “Full Metal Jacket” and the young Orson Welles in “Ed Wood.” But there have been many other roles--most off-center, like the wacko screenwriter who stalked the Tim Robbins character in “The Player,” ’60s activist Abbie Hoffman in “Steal This Movie,” or pulp fiction writer Robert E. Howard in “The Whole Wide World.”

Are there risks for Wolf, Balcer and D’Onofrio (who wanted to work in New York, where his family lives)? Ask Oliver Platt and the other members of “Deadline’s” first-rate cast, who must now be wondering about the peculiar vagaries of the TV biz.

Nevertheless, the “L&O;” brand name is strong, and NBC will probably give the newborn a protected time period. Wolf says 13 episodes will be completed by May, well in advance of an expected September or October debut.

But the larger risk, for “L&O;: Criminal Intent” and dozens of other newcomers, is the looming writers’ strike in Hollywood. Wolf confesses to a “growing sense of foreboding and horror. Almost by definition, it will be the worst strike in the history of Hollywood. Yeah, I think it’s going to happen, unless people get their heads together.”

And if it doesn’t happen? You guessed it: Wolf already has plans for a fourth edition of “Law & Order.”