A DOUBLE IN JUSTICE

Dick Wolf only has a small section of the TV Universe to tend, despite the fact that he's got four weekly hour-long shows currently in production in which to do so. Whoever he's paying to be his continuity overseer needs to keep an eye on all the details. Otherwise, Chaos will get a foothold in 'Law & Order'.

Sure, casting is a big bugaboo - NYC has a deep and fantastic pool of actors to draw from, but it is finite and so there are plenty of repeat appearances in different roles. In fact, there's a website dedicated to all of the recurring actors:

LAW & ORDER'S REPEAT OFFENDERS
http://members.tripod.com/~MindHarp/lorepeat.html

This reminds me of the time John Mahoney played a piano tuner on 'Cheers' and then went on to play the father of 'Frasier'. How come so many characters look alike in all those 'Law & Order' shows? How come nobody noticed that Detective Lennie Briscoe looked just like a lawyer who showed up the year before?

To spare myself as a televisiologist that headache, I just have to assume there is something that differentiates those characters played by the same actor which is not visible to the audience viewing at home. (I doubt that it's because we're all so tightly packed here while living together in the Naked City that we alll started looking alike as if we were one big old married couple aggregate.)

But even so, more care should have been taken with one particular actor and the roles he's playing on the various shows in the 'Law & Order' franchise.

David Lipman is a character actor who would have found plenty of work back in the days of the old movie studios; in the mold of S.Z. Sakall, John McGiver, Gene Lockhart, or Guy Kibbee. Pudgy, bald, and bespectacled, Lipman can be counted on for a great delivery with his tort retorts issued from the bench while playing a judge.

Actually, while playing judges.

Since at least 1992, Lipman has been playing Judge Morris Torledsky on the original 'Law & Order'. But when the empire began to grow and now there was 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit', suddenly he's appearing as a judge on that as well - but going by the name of Arthur Cohen.

Both shows are supposed to be in the same universe. Even if we disregard all the other shows out there in Toobworld, at least the 'Law & Order' shows should all be inter-related. After all, they've had crossovers of their main characters, and you don't see Dann Florek joining the cast of 'L&O:SVU' as anybody else but his Captain Donald Cragen.

And David Lipman is notable in his appearance. I don't think there's a toupee in the world that might fudge his facial features enough to make you think: maybe he's a different person. And they're not even trying with the toupee defense! As both Judge Torledsky and Judge Cohen, Lipman has that same bald-pated, tubby owlishness about him.

Somebody should have told the 'SVU' prop man that the judges' nameplates were NOT interchangeable!

So how to splain it away? The 'Law & Order' corner of the TV Universe is grounded in reality; we can't go looking for trekkian technobabble regarding cloning or alien doppelgangers to provide the excuse.

(I was pushing it when I banished the one episode "Gov Luv" to the evil mirror universe, and by suggesting that a philanthropic organization known as the Kent Foundation had been established in memory of the late Clark Kent, a journalist from Metropolis who passed away several decades before......)

Well, there is a possible splainin. It's an old chestnut that we've had to trot out in the past, but it's a fail-safe. Established by a classic TV theme song, this splainin has roots too deep to just brush off. Once broadcast, everything becomes part of the Toobworld Dynamic and can be called upon for use anywhere within the TV Universe.....

"Still they're cousins,

Identical cousins and you'll find

They laugh alike, they walk alike,

At times they even talk alike.

You can lose your mind

When cousins are two of a kind."

That's my story, your Honor, and I'm sticking to it!

Here's a rundown of David Lipman's episodes in the 'Law & Order' universe, as listed by the IMDb.com:

"Law & Order: Trial by Jury" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Forty-One Shots" (episode # 1.2) 4 March 2005
"Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" playing "Judge Arthur Cohen" in episode: "Contagious" (episode # 6.11) 11 January 2005
"Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" playing "Judge Cohen" in episode: "Brotherhood" (episode # 5.12) 6 January 2004
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Floater" (episode # 14.7) 12 November 2003
"Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" playing "Judge Cohen" in episode: "Abomination" (episode # 5.8) 11 November 2003
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Smoke" (episode # 13.24) 21 May 2003
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Kid Pro Quo" (episode # 13.20) 30 April 2003
"Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" playing "Judge Arthur Cohen" in episode: "Futility" (episode # 4.22) 25 April 2003 "Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Absentia" (episode # 13.13) 12 February 2003
"Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" playing "Judge Cohen" in episode: "Waste" (episode # 4.8) 15 November 2002
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Hitman" (episode # 13.6) 13 November 2002
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Tragedy on Rye" (episode # 13.4) 30 October 2002
"Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" playing "Judge Cohen" in episode: "Chameleon" (episode # 4.1) 27 September 2002
"Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" playing "Judge Arthur Cohen" in episode: "Greed" (episode # 3.20) 26 April 2002
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Possesion" (episode # 12.5) 31 October 2001
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "School Daze" (episode # 11.22) 16 May 2001
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Burn, Baby, Burn" (episode # 11.6) 22 November 2000
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Black, White and Blue" (episode # 10.17) 22 March 2000
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Juvenile" (episode # 9.18) 14 April 1999
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Faccia a Faccia" (episode # 8.15) 25 February 1998
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Harvest" (episode # 8.4) 29 October 1997
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Double Down" (episode # 7.19) 16 April 1997
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Legacy" (episode # 7.10) 15 January 1997
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Corpus Delicti" (episode # 6.11) 17 January 1996
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Performance" (episode # 5.14) 8 February 1995
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Virtue" (episode # 5.8) 23 November 1994
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Old Friends" (episode # 4.22) 25 May 1994
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "The Pursuit of Happiness" (episode # 4.10) 1 December 1993
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Mother Love" (episode # 3.15) 24 February 1993
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Self Defense" (episode # 3.7) 11 November 1992
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "Intolerance" (episode # 2.20) 14 April 1992
"Law & Order" playing "Judge Morris Torledsky" in episode: "The Fertile Fields" (episode # 2.19) 7 April 1992

BCnU!
Tele-Toby