Two endings let viewers decide character's fate

Viewers can go online to vote for their choice.
By RICHARD HUFF
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
The fate of a recurring character on NBC's "Law & amp; Order: Criminal Intent" will be placed firmly in the hands of the show's viewers. In what may be a first for TV, producers and cast have shot two endings for the episode airing tonight, which revolves around the character Nicole Wallace, played by Olivia D'Abo.
Wallace will die on one coast and live on the other.
Viewers then will have a chance to vote on whether she comes back.
"Cool counts, and that's all we thought, that this would be pretty cool," series star Vincent D'Onofrio said this week.
Viewers' choice
After the telecast, viewers nationwide can go to NBC.com to see the ending they didn't get and vote on the outcome. The decision will be revealed before the Oct. 24 episode.
It's a one-time experiment, D'Onofrio and show executive producer Rene Balcer told reporters.
The original episode was shot last spring in preparation for the start of this season. Then last month, Balcer, D'Onofrio and others on the show started noticing a lively discussion on the Internet over the fate of D'Abo's character.
Seeing that the character had struck a chord, Balcer & amp; Co. went back and shot another ending -- roughly two minutes of material.
The series, the third in the "Law & amp; Order" franchise, stars D'Onofrio as Detective Robert Goren and Kathryn Erbe as his partner, Detective Alexandra Eames. Compared to its sister shows, "Criminal Intent" focuses more on the psychological aspects of criminal investigations.
Not a gimmick
Going with two endings could be viewed as pure gimmickry, but Balcer and D'Onofrio insist it's anything but.
"If it was up to me, and I know Rene feels the same way, we're never going to do this again," D'Onofrio said.
"We've never gone back and changed endings or major parts of the show," Balcer said. "This is really a testament to our love/hate relationship with the character."
Giving viewers on the East and West Coasts slightly different shows is not a new twist, but changing the endings altogether is.
In the past decade, NBC's "ER" did a live episode, which meant offering two different feeds for the coasts, each a tad off from the other. ABC did the same with a live edition of "The Drew Carey Show."
And there was a live performance of "Fail Safe," on CBS.
In each of those cases, any variations were due to the live nature of the production, rather than story-line changes.