I didn’t watch Law & Order when it was on in prime time. In fact, I’ve only started watching it (them) in the last couple of years in reruns… interminable, ubiquitous reruns. Sometimes all three L&O’s are on at the same time on different stations.
But Lennie is my favorite character of all of the dozens of police, D.A.'s, A.D.A.'s, judges, defense attorneys, criminals, and all the rest.
He is smart, gentle, vulnerable, wise, intimately acquainted with human weaknesses and foibles, but not bitter or mean. Even though he’s been married several times, he still seems to believe in love… for other people anyway. And he is damn funny! His witty, throwaway one-liners kill me. There are some great quotes from him here on the IMDB. (I didn’t want to cut and paste them all.) I like his sort of lopsided face, the mouth with a built-in ironic expression, the 50’s non-hairstyle, and unselfconsciously retro wardrobe. An old-fashioned guy. God rest his soul.
P.S. I also liked Jerry Orbach as Jennifer Gray’s father in Dirty Dancing. He was very Lennie-like in that role, too.
My ex-wife used to regard Orbach as Briscoe as the only real good to watch the show. I didn’t agree with that, but he was a terrific character
ETA: She actually also really liked the original lieutenant (I forget his name), before S. Epatha came along. I never really understood why that was, though.
Just wanted to add my love for Lenny to the group. I really liked most of the detectives, but the combination of Briscoe and Logan will always be unmatched in my eyes.
I also love that he and Munch share an ex-wife.
The Lt before SEM was Don Cragen (I’m mixing character and actor names here) who is now Lt on SVU. He was moved in an effort to add more female characters to the show, along with Paul Robinette.
Lennie Briscoe was a character created by scriptwriters and brought to life by an actor, Jerry Orbach. I don’t understand your comment about the glow and the quotes.
The delivery was by Jerry. The words were by a scriptwriter. Which is true of most roles, but certainly a large part of your admiration for Briscoe as a character should go to the writer(s).
My favorite Law and Order moment was when Briscoe and Curtis were on the phone. Briscoe was talking to a man who didn’t speak English well, and didn’t understand his question. Curtis was talking to an uncooperative pawn shop owner. Neither was getting anywhere. Then they glanced at each other, and swapped phones. Curtis asked the question in Spanish and got a helpful answer. Briscoe hollered that if the pawn shop owner didn’t cooperate, he was going to go down there with “a couple of uniforms, and check everything in his place” to see if it was stolen. He then got a helpful answer too.
I looked it up and apparently he didn’t marry her, it’s just that Briscoe slept with one of Munch’s ex wives. Although, to be fair, I think they were both married enough times that it was bound to happen.
It was revealed in a crossover, but may have been long enough ago to have been an L&O/Homicide one. Not sure though.
Not to belabor, but I said I really loved the CHARACTER, so my admiration for the writers was implied. In a separate paragraph I said I liked Jerry Orbach the actor, indicating that I do know the difference between a character and an actor. <Still puzzled>
Did the Lennie character ever show any of this musical talent on L&O?
I didn’t get into Law & Order until a couple of years ago, but it’s just about everyday viewing now- TNT seems to have it in reruns about four hours a day, and more on the weekends. One of our nicknames for the show at home is Law & Orbach, although we like Jack McCoy just about as much as much as Lennie and there were a lot of other good actors in there over the years (J.K. Simmons is a favorite of mine, S. Epatha Merkerson was always good, and my girlfriend is a fan of Rogers, the medical examiner). He was good with all of his costars, although Jesse L. Martin is my personal favorite. It’s true that Orbach manged to make the traditional scene-ending cop quips sound a lot more believable than most actors could have. His skill with those lines might have encouraged the writers to rely on them too much over the years; after he died the cheesiness really sticks out sometimes. I haven’t seen too much of his other work, but he’s also very good as a sleazeball type in Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors. Sam Waterston happens to a play a very un-Jack McCoy-like character in that one.
Once in a while we’ll watch the very old episodes from '90 or '91 and it’s interesting that the show feels a lot less polished even though it generally is not as good. About a month ago we saw the second episode of the entire series and found Cynthia Nixon guest starring as a Bernie Goetz-style subway vigilante.
The episode was called Baby It’s You. It was one of the Law & Order/Homicide crossovers and it aired in reruns recently.
Yeah- what I meant to say is that because it’s less polished, it feels a little more real even though it’s not as good. Certainly the sets are less lavish and that makes some of the police HQ and backroom DA scenes feel a bit more lived-in.
It’s interesting to see how long-running shows evolve. I agree that the very early L&O shows have a quality of realism that almost makes you think of the black and white dramas of the 50’s. Lots of close-ups, quick cuts. Smaller courtrooms (hehe). I do prefer the polished look of the later episodes.
*Law and Order * is my favorite cop and/or lawyer show ever. Briscoe was my favorite character, followed closely by Van Buren. The last year got to Soap Opera-ish with her cancer, but I did have a lot of sympathy for her. But I did like the scene where she was smoking weed for the chemo, got the munchies and wanted a key lime pie from a specific bakery. And Bernard basically said “You got it”
Abby Carmichael was my favorite prosecutor on the show.
