As long as they don't bring back Nora Lewin

Apparently, big changes are afoot for Law and Order: Mothership. While "on the bubble" for NBC, TNT stepped up to the plate and made an offer to pony up serious cash to air first run Law and Order originals. In the end, NBC/Universal struck a deal which allows the mothership to continue on NBC (moving to Sundays, I think), and first runs of Law and Order: Criminal Intent to air on corporate cousin USA, with re-airs on NBC. Law and Orders (all three of 'em) are like "comfort food" to me, so I'm happy to see them all continue in some various form.

The mothership will see some serious change, though:

• Rene Balcer, who worked on the original before heading off to create CI, will return to the mothership as showrunner.
• Fred Dalton Thompson may step down as DA Arthur Branch, in order to contemplate a real-life presidential bid. Or, simply to cuts costs. Either way, it appears that Jack McCoy will no longer be the world's oldest Assistant DA, and will step up as DA. Since Jack doesn't have a taste for politics, I imagine the plot will see him "appointed" to the job in the wake of Branch's departure.
• Rumors abound about other cast changes, with no one save Lt. Van Buren safe.

If it was up to me, here's what I'd do:

• McCoy moves to DA.
• Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March) returns to fill Jack's role as Senior ADA.
• Rubirosa (my favorite ADA since Angie Harmon's Abby "Hang 'em High" Carmichael) stays as Cabot's #1.
• Ed Green stays as lead detective.
• As much as I like Milena Govich, I've never quite forgiven her for playing the manipulative skank on Rescue Me who bilked Kenny out of his money and broke his heart (hits too close to home, apparently). And I don't think she ever really caught on with viewers as Nina Cassidy. So why not bring over John Munch from SVU? They're adding Adam Beach to the SVU cast, and Munch had less and less to do even before that move. That would keep a nice XX and XY balance to the cast, though the police side would be all boys and the legal side all girls.

Also, it's supremely annoying that Blogger won't take "ampersand" characters, especially when you're writing about Law and Order.