I dont know if its still around but one of the tv boards used to have a "repeat offenders " list of everyone who’d guested and L&O more than once and who tye played each time
actually, he claimed all he did for L&o was play a more serious version of a character hed played on murder she wrote and even had an ill-fated spin-off that lasted maybe 3 episodes …
supposedly the character was supposed to be more serious but he lightened it up because MSW wasn’t a “hard” toned show
For a show that had so little to do with the characters personal lives, I always notice the episodes that are the first or last appearance of a long-running character, or when a departed character is referenced. I read somewhere that there were three references to Briscoe’s death, once by each of his partners. Green and Curtis (in town for his wife’s funeral) mention it on L&O, and apparently Logan says it once on CI, but I haven’t seen that. I think it was also mentioned once that after retirement Lennie would go to the opera with Dr. Rogers.
The best ever was when Briscoe and Curtis are at the home of an elderly man who’s been murdered. They see a picture of the victim with a young woman in a wedding dress and disagree whether she’s his wife or his granddaughter. They wager a hot pastrami sandwich from the Carnegie Deli. When she arrives and says she’s his wife, Curtis tells her that her husband is dead. Then Lennie leans over to him and says “extra mustard, and don’t trim the fat.”
I remember that episode well. It was one of the very best. A former stripper aged 22 married a wealthy 74 year old man. The young girl has a mother who looked remarkably like her daughter. The best line of that show came at the very end when the mother was busted for the murder and she looks at her daughter who had set her up and says, “You are just as dumb as a bag of hair!”
I had never heard that before and thought it was just great.
One of my favorite Briscoe moments was as follows. Lennie and his partner go to a businessman’s office to place him under arrest. When they walk in, the suspect is talking on the phone. Lennie grabs the handset out of the businessman’s hand and says into the mouthpiece, “He’ll call you back in 25 years!”
As A New Hampshirite, I always laugh when Lennie’s quipped “New Hampshire? I spent a year there one weekend.” after hearing a suspect visited my state.
Also I remember when they were investigating a murder in a dive hotel, one of the cops asked if the room has been cleaned and the hotel owner replied, “Not since 1957.”
After finding a body in a store dressing room, Briscoe—“Well it finally happened. She shopped til she dropped.”
A crime scene tech gives Brisco a cane and tells hims he’s looking for a suspect with a limp. The ME examining tells Lenny the victim had a bad knees and the cane belonged to her. Briscoe—“That’s the problem with crime scene guys; they all think there cops.” (An obvious jab at CSI)
I can’t believe I forgot to mention how much I loved (at the time) the Homicide crossover episodes. The characters, especially Briscoe and Munch, had such great chemistry. I said at the time because now those episodes are skipped in reruns or just the L&O parts are shown.
And my favorite L&O joke on 30 Rock
I was still salty about the cancellation and that joke just burned my soul.
Did you guys watch The Last Ship? She was in Season 4, and what happened to her in the end was verrrry satisfying. It didn’t make up for all the pain she inflicted during her stint on L&O, but it helped.
My fella, who has a really good eye for such things, had never seen the The Stand, the first one. I had him watch is and pointed out the bad guy, saying, it’s funny, I never saw that guy anywhere else. Shit, he said, Law and Order, that’s Jamey Sheridan.
Maitre D’: [referring to the victim and her husband] She gave him a big hug.
Lennie Briscoe: No kiss?
Maitre D’: You married?
Lennie Briscoe: I’ve toyed with the notion.
I like seeing all the now-famous actors who show up in the early seasons…William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Huffman, James Earl Jones*, Allison Janney, Hayden Pannettiere, Amanda Seyfried…the list goes on and on.
Is it streaming anywhere? I’ve looked on Prime, Netflix, and Hulu and I can’t seem to find it.
I gave up on SVU after Stabler left. He left a big hole.
*Well, JEJ was famous before L&O, but it was fun to see him pop up.
My favorite Law & Order line, when the team was investigating the bombing of a women’s health clinic:
Pro-Life Person: We favor birth. We think frozen embryos should be carried to term by volunteers and then put up for adoption.
Finn: A lot of gay men and lesbians will be glad to hear that.
P-L P: No, we only favor adoption to the right people.
Finn: Yeah. Straight, white, Christian couples
P-L P: Oh, we’re not prejudiced. Christians come in all colors.
The cold open always seemed to feature someone walking somewhere in New York and stumbling on a dead body. And then when the person was being interviewed by the police, they’d continue to do their job (moving boxes, shelving books, whatever). At some point, they’d seem to get annoyed and ask, “Are we done? These flowers aren’t going to arrange themselves.” It gave the impression that New Yorkers were really blasé about dead bodies.
I really enjoyed the later seasons when Dennis Farina played one of the detective Joe Fontana. I think he and Jerry Orbach (Lenny Briscoe) were my two favorite characters in the entire series.
It always seemed to me that Fontana was a highly unrealistic char who would have been fired within about ten seconds for appearing to have a huge fortune. The way he dressed and the car he drove both seemed to me to require a millionaire’s budget. But the best thing about him - IMO - was his attitude. I loved watching him.
But I’m fairly certain he didn’t make the decisions as to how the character would act or what characteristics he possessed. That sort of thing just isn’t under the control of the actor.