Prosecutor on ‘Law & Order: SVU’ had other cases to try
Question: Why was the prosecutor from “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” dropped from the program?
Answer: Raul Esparza, who played assistant district attorney Rafael Barba, told EW.com that “I felt like it was time to go. I had explored a lot of what I thought Barba was about. … I had reached the end of what I wanted to explore.” Since Barba was not killed off on the show, there’s always a chance he could return in some fashion — as has happened with some other members of the “Law & Order” family — and Esparza said he was open to that.
Q: I watch “Hawaii 5-0,” and there is a male character on the show who is or was married to the female character who left the show. What happened to that relationship?
A: Adam Noshimuri (played by Ian Anthony Dale) is still married to Kono Kalakaua. Grace Park, who played Kono, left the series after the end of last season. She and Daniel Dae Kim, who played Chin Ho Kelly, exited reportedly because they could not agree to new contracts that paid them what Alex O’Loughlin and Scott Caan were getting on the show. At the beginning of the season, viewers were told that Chin and Kono have moved on to special task forces elsewhere. As far as we’ve known at this point, Adam and Kono are still married; in a December episode, he was getting ready for a flight to Los Angeles to see her.
Q: Is “Midnight, Texas” coming back?
A: NBC has ordered a second season of the supernatural drama, though I don’t have an air date for its return. There will be some changes from the first season of the show based on novels by Charlaine Harris: Neither Yul Vazquez (Rev. Emilio) nor Sarah Ramos (Creek) was listed among the returning cast members when Season 2 was announced. Some reports have suggested they could be back as guest stars. And Eric Charmelo and Nicole Snyder, consulting producers on the first season, have been upped to showrunners for the second.
Q: Do you know if or when the series “Alone” might be returning to the History channel?
A: A fifth season of the reality series is coming to the History Channel, although a date has not been set.
Q: When I was looking for when “Tyler Perry’s Too Close to Home” would return, I came across an article saying it was canceled by TLC. Will it be returning on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network, since that’s where most of his stuff winds up anyway? The series finale ended in a cliffhanger.
A: I have seen nothing about the show having a new life on another network now that TLC is done with it.