Check out tonight's terrific "Law & Order" episode, entitled "Strike." It's a little bit of tv history, and the very first time - I believe - that this classic has actually ripped from its OWN headline.
The backstory: Early this winter, "L&O" superscribe, Rene Balcer, was walking the picket lines outside a major LA studio when he got tapped by someone in an SUV; turns out the guy was a mid-level studio exec who was sick and tired of the noisy strikers getting in his way, and decided to teach one of them a lesson. Wrong guy! Balcer - "feisty" is his middle name - got into a scrap with the jerk; no damage to either.
But here's the lesson: Never pick a fight with someone who runs a show that borrows heavily, if not exclusively, from real life. Revenge served up tonight. It's about a bunch of striking legal aid workers in NYC; one of them Frank, is particularly obnoxious. "You think we're gonna get a contract singing Kumbaya," he tells one of the strikers (pragmatically.) Cut to the next scene: Frank is quite dead. First clue: Some guy in a black beamer who was sick and tired of the noisy strikers getting in his way...
Added bonus: There's also a Suffolk County storyline.
(Right, Anthony Anderson - Det. Kevin Bernard - on "L&O.)