#Sean Jablonski

[kermodefan94-blog]

Constellation (Apple TV +)   Season 1.  Review.  .  

 NOTE Having started this season without seeing any marketing beyond the fact it was sci-fi from Apple TV + and starred Noomi Rapace   Having sat through all eight episodes it’s hard to know exactly how much to give away in this review from a synopsis perspective but ( Like the show itself)  This viewer will keep it as vague as possible.  As the years progress, the Apple TV + series catalogue…

[unes23]

Constance Jablonski by Sean & Seng for POP Magazine

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 10.9

Beer Birthdays

Anna Maria Hartig Krug Schlitz (1819)

Jacob Schmidt (1846)

Pat McElroy, Miss Rheingold 1949 (1928)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Scott Bakula; actor (1954)

Guillermo del Toro; Mexican film director (1964)

John Lennon; English rock singer, songwriter (1940)

Camille Saint-Saens; composer (1835)

Robert Wuhl; actor, writer (1951)

Famous Birthdays

Rocky Aoki; Benihana founder (1938)

Brian Blessed; English actor (1938)

Jackson Browne; singer, songwriter (1948)

Bruce Catton; historian (1899)

John Doubleday; English artist (1947)

Alfred Dreyfus; French military officer (1859)

John Entwistle; rock bassist (1944)

P.J. Harvey; English rock singer (1969)

Nona Hendryx; singer-songwriter(1944)

E. Howard Hunt; CIA officer (1918)

Steve Jablonsky; composer (1970)

Yusef Lateef; jazz musician (1920)

Aimee Semple McPherson; Canadian-American evangelist (1890)

Sean Ono Lennon; pop singer (1975)

Chris O'Dowd; Irish actor (1979)

Michael Pare; actor (1958)

Mike Peters; cartoonist (1943)

Belva Plain; author (1915)

Nicholas Roerich; Russian archaeologist and painter (1874)

Otto Schnering; candy bar manufacturer (1891)

Karl Schwarzschild; German physicist and astronomer (1873)

Johann Andreas Segner; German mathematician, physicist (1704)

Tony Shalhoub; actor (1953)

Alastair Sim; Scottish-English actor (1900)

Mike Singletary; football player (1958)

Simeon Solomon; English painter (1840)

Jacques Tati; French film director (1907)

Charles Walgreen; drug store founder (1873)

Jody Williams; academic and activist (1950)

[lo-diehards]

NBC's Law & Order Franchise -- A Franchise in Disarray

NBC's Law & Order franchise (which started with the original series in 1990) has seen numerous changes over the years, but in this post-COVID-19 era of television, some of these new changes are not for the good.

The Law & Order 2022 reboot is lacking what made it's original run legacy television, Special Victims Unit lost a beloved show runner/executive producer (Warren Leight who decided the leave at the end of season 23) and cast member (Kelli Giddish, who was fired at the start of season 24, which later resulted in controversy as details of her firing came to light), and Organized Crime which has had a revolving door of show runners/executive producers since it's inception BEFORE it even made it to air.

I'm going to start in sequential order in which negative change [IN MY OPINION] came into play with this once beloved TV franchise that was once taglined by critics and press as "Must See TV/Most Watched Television"

Please Click the read more tab below to read my thoughts on the brand and what I feel can be done to correct the course of the brand, before it's too late... hang on to your seats!

Law & Order: Organized Crime (2021-present, season 3) - a Disorganized Mess.

The Christopher Meloni led series has had numerous complications behind the scenes since the show's inception pre-production. Chicago P.D.'s Matt Olmstead co-created the show with Dick Wolf (and later Ilene Chaiken) and Olmstead left the production after the pilot ("What Happens in Puglia") to be replaced by Chaiken (of The L Word fame). Law & Order: OC never started with much of a premise and a way to establish itself as it started with Stabler mostly bringing Kathy Stabler's killers (the Wheatley's: portrayed by Dylan McDermott and Tamara Taylor) to justice. And in between that, Stabler and the unit going in and out of undercover assignments. The Organized Crime Control Bureau has never really been fleshed out since the series start; season 3 brought some new detectives into the fold to assist with that but storylines in the serialized series have been all over the place.

While Organized Crime was meant to distance itself from the formula of the Law & Order brand, it doesn't feel like a Law & Order show - it feels more like the Stabler show to where we mostly see Stabler as IMO this almost vigilante cop seeking retribution, in this day and age (and Stabler's because he should definitely be matured from this kind of mindset), it doesn't work. This show lacks "the Law & Order feel" (title cards don't even exist in this show except for one episode, "Gimmie Shelter") and I believe it's why the series doesn't hold audience much as SVU or even the rebooted mothership.

It doesn't help that the show is now on it's 6th show runner, being SVU's David Graziano (who is surrounded by a controversy of his own that seems to be being pushed under the rug and ignored by higher ups at the network and at Wolf Entertainment). Olmstead, Chaiken, Barry O'Brien, Bryan Goluboff from SVU, Sean Jablonski and now Graziano. What ever is going on behind the scenes at OC needs to come to a full stop otherwise this show won't make it to syndication status (5 seasons, 100 episodes). This show has a super talented cast that deserve the best; Danielle Moné Truitt and Ainsley Sieger absolutely shine!

Law & Order (reboot 2022-present, season 2) - more like crash & burn.

Now this show is really pushing my buttons and it's only because of how the stories are being written for this reboot starting from the very first episode. Dick Wolf and the network decided to give the mothership it's very much deserved second chance (it never should have been canceled) and they've managed to put together a stellar cast out of Jeffery Donovan (Burn Notice), Hugh Dancy (Hannibal), Odelya Halevi, and Camryn Manheim. Sam Waterston returned as Jack McCoy and this season Mehcad Brooks (Supergirl, Necessary Roughness) replaced Anthony Anderson who only opted to do one season.

I'm not going to sugar coat this, making Rick Eid (who 'developed' a show that was already developed once back in 1988/1990 when he was still in grade school - it's a reboot where nothing has changed formula wise!) the show runner/EP over this series is a very poor business decision. Eid has had a poor history within the Law & Order franchise itself. He was part of a writing team that Dick Wolf and the network had to intervene and dismiss back in 2007 due to declining ratings on mother ship due to the decline in the quality of the writing at that time, Wolf made him show runner over Law & Order: SVU's 18th season and Eid "had to move on [to Chicago P.D.]", basically for the same reason. The. Same. Reason. It's a case of "Fool me once, fool me twice," we're on the 3rd now.

From the minute "The Right Thing" hit the airwaves, I knew it was 2007/2016 all over again! The reboot storylines are tone-deaf, have massive plot holes, pull directly from the headlines without much deviance, skew to certain political leanings (hard left and right) and is shoved into the faces of viewers, and problems with legal strategy that actually go against the actual law and procedures that wouldn't even wash in an actual courtroom (and yes I am aware it's work of fiction but that is why they have legal advisors on the payroll - or at least I hope).

And the characters? Caricatures. I can't really root for any of them - Samantha Maroun & Jalen Shaw (Halevi & Brooks who are great) are the closet ones who are actually being fleshed out as characters that can be relatable/likable. Cosgrove and Price need work bad! Cosgrove is basically a more hard-core Elliot Stabler with a thick Bronx accent in one episode and then another episode he's a young Lennie Briscoe/Michael Westen from Burn Notice mix; it's not consistent. Most seem to prefer him portraying Cosgrove in a Michael Westen-ish style as opposed to Stabler 2.0 (if that's the case swap Donovan and Meloni).

Nolan Price? I don't know where to start. Who is Nolan Price? I don't know honestly but I can tell you he is NOT a great prosecutor. He's no Mike Cutter, McCoy or even Ben or Peter Stone. Price is written just as inconsistent as Cosgrove is and the cases as they make it to court and trial make Price worse, because it seems ambition and wanting to win is the only thing this character has. "Bias" that just aired showcased Price as a colleague was murdered and he had a personal investment in the case. He should have be recused and maybe even suspended due to his misconduct. And Price's arrogance in this episode, telling Jack McCoy that he let him run with the case because "I'm the best." I love Hugh Dancy and he's a magnificent actor but this writing is hurting this role for him in my view.

And speaking of McCoy, where the hell is he? I understand Sam Waterston can't do what he was doing back in 2007 in the courtroom scenes and he is the district attorney but my goodness, his scenes "lack meat" now, it's all bone. Jack says something pithy about the case, yells a little, and walks out his office/elevator/outside. Eid said in an interview that he wanted McCoy to walk in the shoes of Adam Schiff (Steven Hill), if that's the case Schiff was way more involved in his prosecutors cases and had more say in the direction the cases go. Again, it goes back to the writing.

Unlike on OC, Law & Order could use a show runner change, and it could use it ASAP, because what's airing as quality in this reboot is tarnishing the legacy that the original mothership established.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999-present, season 24) - what is going on behind the scenes and on screen is especially heinous.

Warren Leight's departure last year was the catalyst, however Kelli Giddish's firing was the irresistible force slamming the immovable object - so to speak. Kelli Giddish was fired in place of Wolf/NBC wanting younger blood (Molly Burnett, Days of our Lives); not even a year prior Wolf/NBC faced a form of backlash after dropping two cast members of color - Demore Barnes and Jamie Gray Hyder - in exchange for one male (Octavio Pisano). Star Mariska Hargitay tried to step in to keep Kelli on the show but she was overruled by Wolf and the network.

Meanwhile something that hasn't been overruled but more overlooked; new show runner David Graziano's prior and current accusations of bullying, misogyny, and toxic behavior on sets and behind the scenes of show's he's worked on, including SVU. Graziano took to his Instagram to try and 'explain' his accusations but he did not deny them. How can you write and supervise any kind of story about women's empowerment, healing after trauma and sexual assault, inclusiveness, and justice as someone who has/is doing personal actions against that very stance? And how can Dick Wolf and NBC over look it? Money talks in short. He's also running OC for the last 3 episodes in this season.

That aside which is problematic of itself, like the mother ship, the storylines on SVU have taken a turn sideways. Season 24 started off pretty solid, it wasn't the best it's been in it's prime and younger years (S3-7, and again S13-17), but it was passable to view. Now? Post-Kelli Giddish it seems like the focus is on Muncy (Burnett), Velasco (Pisano) and the recurring guest cast (Kevin Kane and Jasmine Batchelor); ICE T and Peter Scanavino's screen time is noticeably decreased this season than season's past. And like mothership's storylines, inconsistency is on display in full view.

Under Graziano in his first 6 episodes (Gimmie Shelter is written by Rick Eid and Gwen Sigan as part of the season premiere crossover) were the solid ones, even before Kelli's last episode I felt a change in tone coming into play; and coming off of the season's Bronx trilogy its even more noticeable. It's like it's a mix of Eid's season 18 and some other show that's NOT SVU. The focus has gone off of the survivors, veteran characters, the pursuit of the worst criminal offenders, the pursuit of justice and the unit itself. SVU has gone off of the rails and if they want this show to continue to break records and preserve the legacy that it has both on and off screen, they better make some changes fast. SVU's ratings haven't exactly decreased but all this 'change' could soon have a negative impact on them; SVU's dominate the entire franchise right now as a show that's consistently been on air for 24 years now in a changing TV landscape.

In summary/my suggestion(s): the Law & Order franchise needs to undergo some major changes behind the scenes, starting with the gentlemen running these shows. I don't directly want to call for the dismissal of show runners/executive producers Rick Eid and David Graziano (certainly from SVU) but I do feel this is the start absent them being given a different set of marching orders that they should follow (not likely). The issues I brought up above only touch the surface, I don't want to sound nit-picky but things could and should be better.

This franchise is 33 years old and still going, and it could go longer and further but if there aren't any immediate changes that make an impact and turn things around, and the shows keep going about as they are: this franchise won't be around much longer. "The Story Is Everything" is what Dick Wolf has said about the L&O brand and NBC even used that as a tagline during the prime years on the network 2003-2007. That's where the investment needs to start.

[adamsadam0012]

Constellation TV Series on soap2day

Constellation is a sci-fi psychological thriller television series created by Peter Harness, based on a concept by Sean Jablonski. Jo returns to earth after a disaster in space and discovers that there are missing pieces in her life, so she sets out to expose the truth about the hidden secrets of space travel and recover what she has lost. Visit for watching the Constellation TV Series on soap2day.

[allthingslawandorder]

This show is a mess. Hopefully next season - assuming there is one - will get its act together:

From Deadline: ‘Law & Order: Organized Crime’: Sean Jablonski Exits As Showrunner; ‘SVU’s David Graziano To Oversee Remainder Of Season 3:

[suchananewsblog]

‘Law & Order: Organized Crime’: Sean Jablonski Exits As Showrunner; ‘SVU’s David Graziano To Oversee Remainder Of Season 3

There’s been yet another change at the helm of Dick Wolf’s Law & Order: Organized Crime. Sean Jablonski is stepping down as showrunner of NBC’s police procedural, Deadline has confirmed. Jablonski is the fourth showrunner to depart the Law & Order spinoff in the past year. Law & Order: SVU’s David Graziano will oversee the remaining three episodes of Season 3 of Law & Order: Organized Crime,…

[yingtai-is-reading]

In America, unprecedented success begets unprecedented wealth. When Michael Jordan wins six championships or Mark Zuckerberg invents social media, they earn billions.

And not only them but also their teammates — the people whose contributions weren’t just meaningful but necessary. In success, they get paid, too.

But not in Hollywood. Here, when you write for a show that becomes an unprecedented success, there is no such windfall. There is only a check for $259.71.It doesn’t matter whether the show you helped build generates 3.1 billion viewing minutes in one week across Netflix and NBCUniversal’s Peacock, setting a Nielsen record. It doesn’t matter whether said show constitutes 40% of Netflix’s Top 10.

$259.71: That’s how much the “Suits” episode I wrote, “Identity Crisis,” earned last quarter in streaming residuals. All together, NBCUniversal paid the six original “Suits” writers less than $3,000 last quarter to stream our 11 Season 1 episodes on two platforms.

Yes, it’s gratifying that the show has found a new and bigger audience this summer on Netflix. Every writer and actor hopes their work will endure. And yes, I’m grateful to have been in the engine room of “Suits” for eight of its nine seasons.

But $259.71 for writing a show with an audience so massive? This is why writers and actors are on strike. This is why SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher has used terms such as “un-American” to describe this system.

Entertainment executives argue that they are offering writers historic raises. The thing is, even a 100% increase on a $259.71 check doesn’t come close to paying most people’s rent.

Even in a best-case scenario — which “Suits” most definitely is — streaming simply offers no upside for writers and actors and no correlation between results and compensation.

Being underpaid is only part of the problem. The other part? Not being paid at all.

“Suits” became so popular globally that it was licensed and remade in South Korea, Japan and Egypt. When that happens, studios are supposed to pay the writers for the source material.

But a couple of quarters after the Egyptian version of “Suits” began airing last year, I asked the Writers Guild of America to look into why I hadn’t been paid. So far, the guild’s small but intrepid enforcement team has been stonewalled.

The streaming success of “Suits” may be rare, but my experience is common. My fellow writers and actors have taken to posting their own paltry residual checks on social media. Others are owed money for work completed years ago.

A lack of equitable compensation is a valid enough reason to strike and one that most Americans can relate to. Writers and actors are merely the latest arrivals in this late-stage capitalist purgatory.

But this fight is about much more than what writing an episode of “Suits” is worth. It’s about how entertainment is made and paid for more broadly.

Whether you’re an airport baggage handler or a schoolteacher or a television writer, you rely on a whole team to get the job done well. Aaron Korsh, the creator of “Suits,” worked for two years to craft a compelling pilot and made all the big decisions that guided everything we did. But a mock trial episode that truly elevated the series came from Erica Lipez, the sixth writer hired.

Without Lipez’s contributions, there would still be a show. Without any three of us, there would still be a show. But it wouldn’t be “Suits.”

You can’t subtract Sean Jablonski’s subversive edge, Jon Cowan’s storytelling know-how or Rick Muirragui’s laugh-out-loud dialogue and have a Season 1 that lays the foundation for another eight.

In recent years, streamers have exerted downward pressure on the number of writer-producers who work on shows and stripping early- and mid-career writers out of the casting, production and editing processes. On “Suits,” writers participated in every step of their episodes, which contributed to the show’s quality. That rarely happens now.

An overlooked aspect of this strike is that writers and actors are fighting to protect the quality of the shows that people watch.

The resurgence of “Suits” comes at an opportune moment for executives. The business is shut down; they have time to take stock of what has worked and what hasn’t. Among the questions they might ask:

What does it say that a show that debuted 12 years ago is outperforming dozens of newer original series that Netflix has spent hundreds of millions of dollars producing?

What is the real value of the limited series that streamers have been cranking out? Are viewers as likely to revisit short-lived, ripped-from-the-headlines one-offs about corporate scandals or small-town murders as they are a fully developed, long-running drama?

Are viewers craving more carnage and darkness or cable news sermonizing? Or are they hungry for shows that leave them feeling good?

Only the streamers can determine what kind of content they produce and distribute. Writers and actors are powerless to negotiate that.

But many artists are certain that what is broken about Hollywood isn’t just compensation. It’s what’s being made and why.

Unlike many shows today, “Suits” wasn’t made out of fear. Alex Sepiol, the executive most responsible for championing the series, bet that viewers would respond to a show with an unknown creator and mostly unknown cast because the material was simply that funny and human. More than a decade later, that bet is still paying off.

If only it were paying off for the actors and writers who helped make it a winner.

[whileiamdying]

OZ

A series chronicling the daily activities of an unusual prison facility and its criminal inhabitants. Six seasons, and 56 episodes in total.

[babelsquirrel]

Great interview.

Perhaps the best interview they’ve done so far, as it centers on the show itself, the characters, the actors, and not so much on UFOs as many of the interviews do. Lots of laughs, etc. very little spoilers if any on season 2 but looks like we’ll get more ‘down time’, for lack of better description, on our  favorites.

[dixiec89]

A video of a 35 minute interview with the cast and creators!

[unes23]

Constance Jablonski by Sean & Seng for POP Magazine

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 10.9

Beer Birthdays

Anna Maria Hartig Krug Schlitz (1819)

Jacob Schmidt (1846)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Scott Bakula; actor (1954)

Guillermo del Toro; Mexican film director (1964)

John Lennon; English rock singer, songwriter (1940)

Camille Saint-Saens; composer (1835)

Robert Wuhl; actor, writer (1951)

Famous Birthdays

Rocky Aoki; Benihana founder (1938)

Brian Blessed; English actor (1938)

Jackson Browne; singer, songwriter (1948)

Bruce Catton; historian (1899)

John Doubleday; English artist (1947)

Alfred Dreyfus; French military officer (1859)

John Entwistle; rock bassist (1944)

P.J. Harvey; English rock singer (1969)

Nona Hendryx; singer-songwriter(1944)

E. Howard Hunt; CIA officer (1918)

Steve Jablonsky; composer (1970)

Yusef Lateef; jazz musician (1920)

Aimee Semple McPherson; Canadian-American evangelist (1890)

Sean Ono Lennon; pop singer (1975)

Chris O'Dowd; Irish actor (1979)

Michael Pare; actor (1958)

Mike Peters; cartoonist (1943)

Belva Plain; author (1915)

Nicholas Roerich; Russian archaeologist and painter (1874)

Otto Schnering; candy bar manufacturer (1891)

Karl Schwarzschild; German physicist and astronomer (1873)

Johann Andreas Segner; German mathematician, physicist (1704)

Tony Shalhoub; actor (1953)

Alastair Sim; Scottish-English actor (1900)

Mike Singletary; football player (1958)

Simeon Solomon; English painter (1840)

Jacques Tati; French film director (1907)

Charles Walgreen; drug store founder (1873)

Jody Williams; academic and activist (1950)

[cultfaction]

Project Blue Book creators explore Roswell for TNT

Project Blue Book creators explore Roswell for TNT

Hard to believe that it has been over a year since the History Channel opted not to renew one of their highest performing series, Project Blue Book. That is why we were understandably excited when we found out that the creators of that stellar show, David O’Leary and Sean Jablonski will be behind a new UFO drama for TNT. Deadline has reported that the creative pair are developing an untitled…