Martin Leaves Law & Order
February 21, 2008

The revolving door on Law & Order continues with Jesse L. Martin being the latest to hit the door running, leaving the NBC drama after nine years. Martin will be replaced by Anthony Anderson, most recently seen on Fox's cancelled K-Ville and a great guest turn on The Shield. Reuters reports today that Jesse L. Martin will film one more episode of the series and Detective Ed Green will be written off. It's unclear if that means that he will be killed or not. Martin had only signed to do 13 episodes of this season and, apparently, has only one more to film and didn't pick up the option to do more, now that the strike has ended and production has begun again.

Anthony Anderson will play a new detective partnered with the new detective played by Jeremy Sisto, who joined the cast this year. Anderson has been a cop in the Dick Wolf universe already, playing a cop on Law & Order: SVU. It's unclear if he's playing the same character or not. Jesse L. Martin recently wrapped the feature Peter and Vandy and will play Marvin Gaye in the biopic Sexual Healing, which should start shooting in April or May. It could have been a scheduling conflict, with the late restart to production on Law & Order due to the strike, that made the final push for Martin to leave the show, but nine years on Law & Order (or any show for that matter) is a long time.

The 37-year-old Anthony Anderson first appeared in the Eddie Murphy movie Life after a series of TV guest appearances and went on to steal scenes in Romeo Must Die, Big Momma's House, Me Myself & Irene, Urban Legends: Final Cut, Kingdom Come, Exit Wounds, Barbershop, Kangaroo Jack, Cradle 2 the Grave, Scary Movie 3, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Hustle & Flow, Hoodwinked!, The Shield, Scary Movie 4, The Departed, K-Ville, and Transformers.

(Source: Variety)

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