Occasionally, Law and Order will advertise an episode as being based on real events. These are my favorites. There’s one with a pedophile standup comedian who pays parents to allow him to have sex with their children. They really hammer home the fact that he’s supposed to be based on Michael Jackson. There’s another episode that very obviously is a fictionalized account of the Michael Skakel case.
What other episodes are pulled from real events?
There was an episode so closely based on the Joel Steinberg case that L&O was moved to run a disclaimer pointedly denying that the ep was based on the case, going so far as to note differences between the outcome of the episode and the outcome of the actual case.
There was one years ago (“Indifference”) about a man who beat up his adopted/foster daughter, which was based on Joel Steinberg, Hedda Nussbaum and Lisa Steinberg. It featured multiple guest star Marcia Jean Kurtz, who can currently be seen as the woman who won’t undress in Inside Man.
A number of the recent events here were made into L&O eps. The Staten Island Ferry crash, rape of Abner Louima.
There was one years ago (“Indifference”) about a man who beat up his adopted/foster daughter, which was based on Joel Steinberg, Hedda Nussbaum and Lisa Steinberg. It featured multiple guest star Marcia Jean Kurtz, who can currently be seen as the woman who won’t undress in Inside Man.
The Staten Island Ferry crash
The fire at the Happyland Social Club (sad ep, end with the reading of all the fictional names of the dead)
They did something based on the Tailhook story, and also one based on the police fingerprint expert who falsified results to convict people.
The doc who impregnates his fertility clinic patients with his own sperm.
Comatose patient who is raped (turns out her parents arranged it to get a grandchild)
::: sigh ::: It’s like I’m not even here…
Nitpick: That character was a toy-store magnate, not a comedian, and paid some parents hush-money but did not pay them in advance to play with their kid.
That was a seperate episode. The toy store magnate one was on Special Victims Unit.
I thought it was arranged by a millionaire with some disease and he basically paid the parents to impregnate the girl with his sperm and then to have an abortion so he could get the stem cells in an attempt to cure his disease?
Well, the title is “Indifference.”
Isn’t the usual phrase ripped from the headlines? In any case, there was also an episode featuring a female Navy pilot (aviator, if you prefer) that had some vague similarities to real-life pilot Kara S. Hultgreen.
No. What happened was, the woman’s mother wanted a grandchild, and her daughter was in a coma, so she paid a hospital employee to basically rape her own daughter.
There was the O.J.-based California murder where the film director killed his ex-wife. Then there was the P.Diddy/J-Lo club shooting.
And of course, the stabbing of the young tennis star. I can’t remember the name of her real-life counterpart, though.
I watch way too much of that show.
There’s also the creepy toymaker who was based on Michael Jackson.
Well, Monica Seles is a tennis player who was stabbed by a deranged fan of her rival, Steffi Graf, but that episode involved a club attack and had more in common with the assault on skater Nancy Kerrigan, at least at first glance.
Again…two different episodes. One was a regular L&O, and the millionaire one was an SVU episode
The SVU episode was entitled “Waste”, but I can’t seem to find the title of the other episode. Seems to me that it might have been during the Abbie Carmichael years. I could be wrong though.
And yes, I just spent the last half hour trying to find that episode name. Apparently, I have no life.
Thanks for that! I’ve been looking for a website like that to show the similarities, but I forgot about SVU, and was focusing mainly on the first Law and Order series.
There was an episode that closely mirrored Canada’s Paul Bernardo/Karla Homolka killings.
BTW, Indifference may very well be the best. episode. ever. At least in the top five. ‘Pookie’s scared!’ shudder