Canceled television: From 'Law and Order' to 'Scrubs' to a deserving book

From news host Campbell Brown's decision to quit her own show on CNN to the short-lived revival of "Scrubs," a long list of shows are about to head into the dustbin of American television history. Perhaps the biggest to leave the small, glaring screen this year will be "Law & Order," the tough-headed criminal-justice show that began way back in 1990, when George Bush -- the elder -- was president, "Cheers" still had three years left in its 11-season run, and "The Simpsons" were so new that they were only an underground sensation.

Though "Law & Order's" finale ran on NBC on Monday, the real drama was behind the scenes as various news sites and blogs quoted unnamed sources and others vaguely claiming the show would somehow be resurrected. Olympic ski star and fan Lindsay Vonn, of Vail, Colorado, made a cameo in the show she grew up loving. And there was closure on the melodrama surrounding S. Epatha Merkerson’s Lt. Van Buren cancer diagnosis. But in all, the show was as formulaic as any -- in this case tracking down a crazed blogger who builds bombs and prosecuting the hell out of him.

With the show gone, perhaps some die-hard viewers will simply turn off their TVs. And if they don't have iPads or Kindles, they'll look up on the shelf and find a lonely book that never got read -- a better idea than television on any summer anyway.

Recast is a regular feature for dscriber.com by Liza Donnelly, a contract cartoonist with The New Yorker magazine. Some of the drawings in this series are cartoons the magazine decided not to publish or ones that Donnelly simply did for her own pleasure. She is internationally recognized for her work for Cartooning for Peace and she lectures on cartoons, the art of cartooning, and feminism. Donnelly's new book, "When Do They Serve The Wine? The Flexibility, Folly and Fun of Being a Woman," will be released early next year by Chronicle Books. Her website is lizadonnelly.com. Text by dscriber staff.