Alana De Garza to join Law & Order: Los Angeles in part of casting overhaul. Other casting suggestions: ditch Molina, Howard, Stoll, and Coyote.

To the surprise of few who were paying attention, a regular of Law & Order has indeed been added to Law & Order: Los Angeles, in the form of Alana De Garza. She joined the original show as A.D.A. Connie Rubirosa in its sixteenth-year. She stuck around for four seasons, including the final three seasons that made up the creative comeback of what fans refer to as 'the mothership'. She felt completely out of place sparring with by-then grandfatherly Sam Watterson in her first season, but was a perfect fit with Linus Roache once Watterston's Jack McCoy got promoted to DA during season 17.

Considering how much her character thrived when matched with a similarly-aged A.D.A. in the form of Roache's Mike Cutter, it's almost tragic that the show will likely return her character to the role of 'mentoree' to Terrence Howard's Deputy District Attorney Jonah Dekker. While it appears that most of the casting changes have already been completed, allow me to add a few suggestions of my own: Jeremy Sisto, Anthony Anderson, Linus Roache, S. Epatha Merkerson, and Sam Watterson. Oh, and they should move the show to New York City and drop that silly suffix. That is all. Actually, that's not all. If they can poach Richard Belzer over from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, more power to them, as Detective John Munch hasn't left the squad room in about four seasons. "Chung-Chung".

Scott Mendelson