Thoughts on LOUK's ending and hopeful return
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Law & Order: UK
super_rodimus_convoy — 10 years ago(June 11, 2015 01:59 PM)
Here is an interview Bradley Walsh gave on May 18th:
http://www.digitalspy.com/british-tv/news/a647707/bradley-walsh-on-why-he-swapped-laworder-uk-for-bbc-ones-sun-trap.html
"You have to set aside so much time for drama," he explained. "Law & Order was a 6-month shoot, so everything [else] has to be crammed into the rest of the year.
"This particular shoot for Sun Trap is round about 8 weeks maximum - 2 months - so that's OK, that's manageable," he explained. "If I do The Chase or Keep It in the Family or whatever I'm doing - then all of a sudden I can go be a character for 2 months, that's fab."
I don't have a problem with this whatsoever. If that's how he feels, that's great, I get it, I understand it, heck I can even see the logic behind it from his point of view.
What's irritating, though, is that I doubt that him feeling this way was a secret. I doubt it came out of nowhere he hated these long shots and wanted something shorter and would eventually leave. Why didn't the show plan for this possibility? They not only did NOT plan for this possibility, they did the exact opposite and seemed to base the show AROUND him to the point he was the linchpin, so if he DID leave the show was finished, which came true. We could have easily had a recurring character, a rank or two above him perhaps, who could step in from time to time and be promoted to REGULAR character should he ever leave.
Its seems the problem then became since Hawkins JUST became DS, and therefore junior since Ronnie was there first, if Ronnie left he would then be senior when a new partner came on the scene. This was similar to original L&O its final season, its just both characters never at least acted like one outranked the other.
This could have been circumvented by simply having his next partner rank above him, though research into this seems to indicate the rank right above DS was their immediate supervisor, so maybe that wouldn't have worked. If I'm wrong on this and there was another rank and THEN DI, please correct me. On original Law & Order, after Cerreta, there were no subsequent sergeants for the remainder of the show, so there was always that "missing rank" so to speak between detective and lieutenant. I thought that was the case with LOUK, but maybe not.
In any case, thanks to this "break", bringing the show back NOW with the same cast (minus Ronnie, obviously), we can assume in the interim Hawkins gained enough experience that him being the senior DS would make sense, so giving him a new junior DS partner could work.
Or they could get rid of Hawkins altogether and just bring in a brand new senior and junior DS team but keep Flynn as the DI. You could say both got promoted to different divisions or Hawkins got promoted and Ronnie retired.