This time Stevens gets to be the killer

By TERRY MORROW
Scripps Howard News Service
Monday, November 12, 2007

Even before Fisher Stevens read the script for "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" (airing 10 p.m., ET/PT Thursday, USA), he was hoping he'd be the killer.

"Whenever you're the killer, you get that really, really meaty scene," he says. "Killers always get that really good scene at the end."

In Thursday's episode, Stevens plays a literary agent who is a shark. He has a history of abusing women and paying them off to keep silent. He plays a despicable type who has all eyes on him.

"He's super smart but also super ambitious and those (types) are scary people," Stevens says.

After an acquaintance of his is brutalized and then shot, he is among the prime suspects. Of course there are other suspects, too -- veteran character actor Peter Coyote plays a down-on-his-luck writer who has a motivation as well.

This is Stevens' third time playing a guest role on a "Law & Order" series.

He's been a different character each time. His first appearance came in 1995 on the original "Law & Order," when he played a lawyer defending a mother who murdered her child; in 2004, he was cast on "Criminal Intent" in a small role, getting "wiped out" early in the story.

Stevens, whose resume includes the theatrical version of "Torch Song Trilogy" and films such as "Short Circuit" and "Hackers," likes going back to the venerable crime series.

"It's a little bit like doing theater," he says, "and you see the actors on the show doing theater all the time so that's kind of great."

Like the other "Law & Order" shows, "Criminal Intent" has a history of attracting big-name guest stars. During the show's seven-season run, Michael Nouri, Roseanna Arquette, Bobby Cannavale, Tatum O'Neal and Robert Carradine have been cast.

"It's high-quality TV. You know the scripts are really good," he says. "This is the kind of (material) actors look for, especially when they are doing series TV."

And while name guest stars help attract audiences to the show, "Criminal Intent" has had its share of struggles recently. Declining ratings bumped the show off NBC's primetime schedule this season, but it was sent over to NBC's sister cable outlet USA.

By cable TV's more meager ratings standards, "Criminal Intent" has held its own, emerging as one of USA's most-watched shows this fall. The series is averaging 4 million viewers weekly.

Stevens theorizes the entire "Law & Order" franchise could be suffering from overexposure: too many versions of the series and the abundance of reruns on cable.

"There are so many reruns that people want to watch it later rather than when it is on," he says. "I am actually amazed there are three (shows under the 'Law & Order' banner), and they have been going on this long."

But, "it's well-written and good television ... that's why people keep coming back to it."