Nobody could deliver a wisecrack like Lennie Briscoe.
There’s still one early episode I want to see, but haven’t; Everybody’s Favorite Bagman. I think it was the original pilot; filmed well before any more episodes and rather different stylistically. And has a rare on-screen appearance by Steven Zirnkilton, who does the opening narration on all the L&O shows. I have seen early episodes with S. Epatha Merkerson as the mother of a young shooting victim, and another with Jerry Orbach as a defense attorney.
It’s quite amazing how often I recognize an actor, look them up on IMDb, and then discover that I know them from another episode of Law & Order. There was one episode with a dominatrix who looked very familiar. I looked up the actress, Frances Conroy, and figured out that I’d seen her in another episode as a very devout nun.
I would just like to add a personal opinion about one of the actors who appeared on this show.
TTBOMK, he only appeared in two episodes. He played a wisecracking defense attorney. The name Dworkin comes to mind but I have no idea if that is the name of the actor or the character. There is an excellent chance that my memory is completely wrong about this name and it may have nothing to do with either the actor or the char he played.
He played the part of a short kind of “creepy” guy who was real easy to dislike. I enjoyed his portrayals so much that I had hoped he would have been given a recurring role on another show or even given his own show. Dang! I’m so sorry that I cannot remember his name or the plot of either episode in which he appeared. I do recall one scene in which McCoy and this guy sat in a bar and had a brief conversation. It seems to me that this defense lawyer said he either attended Harvard or he complained that he never had the resources or connections to get into Harvard and had to go to a much lesser school. It may help if I add that he played a Jewish man and some of his wisecracks were def related to Jews or Jewish humor. Does anyone remember this guy’s name? Either the name of the actor or the name of the char he portrayed?
I know that I did see him once in some other TV show. But I have no memory of what show that was.
I wanted to thank AndyL as well. I tried to use Multii-Quote but failed.
Oh well. I suppose that learning how to use Multi-Quote will be my project for the day.
Lucas Jackson said: “While Multi Quote is underlined, giving the impression that clicking it would invoke it, it doesn’t work like that. Instead, click the icon to its left, and do that with all the other posts you want to quote. When you click Reply the quoted posts will show up in your reply in the order selected.”
CrowManyClouds then added:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lucas Jackson View Post
See title.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dropzone View Post
{…} When you click Reply the quoted posts will show up in your reply in the order selected.
Then, if you want to nest them,
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lucas Jackson View Post
See title.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dropzone View Post
{…} When you click Reply the quoted posts will show up in your reply in the order selected.
move all the {/QUOTE} to the end. (This keeps all the “Originally Posted by” with the actual quote text. Also, this is when preview is your bestest friend! 'Cause this is really, really, easy to screw up.)
If you don’t enjoy the comedy team of Finn & Munch, I don’t want to know you. They turn LAW & Order: SVU into a comedy gold mine.
Yes, Jerry Orbach was a really fine theatre song and dance man in his prime. When he first staring auditioning for tough guy roles, the reaction was “What? That guy play a tough guy?” He broke through in Prince of the City, and eventually he go to be “What? That tough guy was a song and dance man?”
Yeah, Finn & Munch I loved. I got a little disappointed when Munch ‘retired’ from the show.
Orbach, of course, was amazing.
I’ve loved L&O for a long time, and used to love SVU. Because the first five seasons are now available on Amazon, I started a re-watch and…
…eccccch…
There’s a -whole- lot of dialogue and plots revolving around “Well, the rape victim is obviously lying.” And that gets -real- uncomfortable, as well as the presence of a small but visible amount of ‘she was asking for it, wasn’t she?’ plotlines.
I appreciated that it wasn’t a given that they’d always “win.”
Their clearance rate was certainly WAY above average for real NYC, but the fact that they ever lost at all was fairly innovative, and it created an atmosphere where you couldn’t expect the prosecution to win every single time, which was the standard format for court shows since forever; a TV lawyer on a scripted court show losing a case was almost treated as a “special episode” (in 9 seasons Perry Mason lost exactly 3 cases). At least one season of L&O, their success rate was under 60% (season 4). The season with the highest success rate (95%) was also their lowest ever rated season (season 17).
Yes, that was indeed the original pilot. It actually appeared as episode 6 in the first season.
It’s quite good, but is clearly a pilot (introducing characters etc.)
Is that because she (or actually her character) was a lesbian? This was notoriously introduced at the very end of the episode in which her character was being fired.
Another Dick Wolfe show I like is Chicago PD. It’s not as ‘realistic’ as Law and Order but still enjoyable. The problem with that show is that it doesn’t have the bottomless well of episodes so they keep playing the same 5-6 seasons over and over. You also might like The Wire.
My favorite Criminal Intent episodes are Goren + Eames + Deakins (Jamie Sheridan) so that would be seasons 1-5. After that they’re still good but can try to be a bit too cinematic. There’s nothing to not like about Julianne Nicholson and Annabella Sciorra. The only thing that really rankled me about the later episodes is Jeff Goldblum playing the piano.
I liked watching SVU for a while but they became too preachy and pedantic, like when they’re sitting around reciting crime stats to each other. Still go in a pinch though.
Reminds me much of the old ‘Dragnet’ radio program. I understand the television show was different, but very often in Dragnet the police wouldn’t end up making the case. Now, due to the era, there were rules about making sure ‘crime didn’t pay’, but often as not the show would cap with Friday talking about how they didn’t catch the guy, but a few months later the criminal got caught trying some other crime in another county, or got found dead at a traffic accident. The criminal wouldn’t get away with it, but it wasn’t always, or even commonly, Joe and his partner making the case. Seemed more ‘honest’ that way.
I was watching a rare episode I either missed in its original run or only saw once and completely forgot and she was distractingly bad. You can see it sometimes on the faces of the actors in her scenes. No matter how good they are, a brief moment of confusion passes over their face and then they read their lines.
Anyway, I love the series and still watch it and I still get mad at NBC for canceling it. I watched the first season of SVU and hated it. I watched CI and I mostly enjoyed it, despite it being wildly different in tone and style from time to time. I didn’t mind the LA one, but that got canceled quick and I don’t think I ever saw any of the other versions. My true favorite “spin off” is “Basic Lupine Urology” from Community.
I don’t love the first few seasons, but I liked Paul and the two cops and early Claire. I am more likely to watch something else if that’s the block on WETV on the weekends. I don’t like the guy who took over as ADA when Jack when full DA. And most of all I hate the episode where it turns out he’s maybe not really a lawyer and that episode seems to be in the heaviest rotation. His accent is terrible and distracting, but I’d rather watch him all day every day than one Rohm episode.
Watching Law & Order is my happy place. I have found that almost any difficult situation can be made better with Law & Order episodes. I find it especially soothing on long airplane flights and during dental cleanings (I bring my portable DVD player and some earphones and I barely notice what’s happening to my teeth).
