Wasn’t the show always formulaic? That was actually part of the appeal.
Worse now.
Early seasons they actually did murders and such, not ripped from the headlines. And, the defendant just pled Not Guilty, as the People scrambled to get evidence, often sending the Detectives back out.
Not like this. Not this bad. And the law wasn’t this bad.
Legal theories from Price, legal rulings from judges, that make no sense, except to move the plot along.
I can rewatch pretty much every other season, but I don’t believe I’ll ever rewatch any of these.
Ans Cosgrove regressed either this week or last. "Why can’t I say that word, all you folks (directed at Bernard) do. “Why can’t bosses berate their employees?” He’s such a fossil, I think Bernard should call his buddies at IA.
Has Law and Order been canceled yet? It’s totally awful and unwatchable. It’s like they are putting bad fan fiction on TV.
That’s a good summation.
Then shows seems to think that, if one is declared innocent “by reason of mental defect or Havana Syndrome”, that he just gets to go home.
Well, I have been putting off watching this, but now I don’t think I’ll bother.
I was (and still am) a great fan of the original series. And sure, it was formulaic–duh. Law and order. The first half of the show generally showed the crime and the second half the trial. All crime/mystery stories are formulaic to a certain extent. But within that framework, the shows were very well done. I still enjoy the reruns that are on in the afternoons.
I’m a completest. I gotta see them all. Hate to miss the one good one. (I’ll let you know if that happens).
Speaking of Wolf, I watch two out of three of the FBI family, and while those episodes are a bit better overall, I don’t think any of them have rewatchabilty.
I forgot this part. Probably put it out of my mind, for my own sanity. I quote a review:
“In this L&O fantasy land, an assistant district attorney convicts the CEO of a major drug company based on the testimony of a drug-addicted, recently convicted murderer who takes to the stand high on the pills another ADA fetched for him!” And Sam keeps her job! Incredible!
Hehe. I understand completely. If I watched one, I’d have to watch all of them.
Please do.
I don’t think there’s been one this season that wasn’t.
Did you all notice Bruce MacVittie died? He’s got to be by far the number one “repeat offender”. 7 Motherships, 2 CI, 2 SVU.
Another overlooked metric of Law & Order’s decline is its near-total reliance on rich defendants to a) lend drama to cases that wouldn’t otherwise have any, and b) give the audience the chance to boo and hiss at the rich jerk(s) trying to buy their way out of their fair comeuppance. It’s to the point where if the word “wealthy” appears in the episode description, you know it’s going to suck. (Besides all the other reasons it’s probably going to suck.)
There’s one more episode left in the season. Maybe they’ll pull it together and get back some of the old spark. If not, I’m done. For all its reliance on formula, Law & Order of old usually managed to respect its viewers’ intelligence. This season has been so dumbed-down it’s actually offensive.
I’ve been watching the season but I haven’t really been enjoying it. I just got done doing a rewatch of the entire series (took me about 2 years!) so I’ve got some of the best detectives and lawyers on my brain.
My biggest annoyances from this season, which people have already pointed out, are
- The waste of Camryn Manheim
- The caricature of the right-wing cop (while utterly believable to find such a person in such a position, he’s just soooo cartoony)
- The huge reliance on video. Everything is on surveillance video and easily obtained by the police. As far as I know NYC is not like London, there are no government surveillance cameras. In previous series they’d hit the jackpot if a crime happened within “eye-shot” of an ATM camera. Now every episode they have a video of the perp walking to the crime scene with a weapon drawn. And it’s no big deal. “Oh yeah we have a video.” Not “We contacted every business owner within a 10 block radius and confiscated their sidewalk video footage for the night in question and had a team of forensic scientists scour the footage for the defendant and found them, clear as day.” I know that a lot of video exists IRL but they make it seem waaaaay more accessible than it probably is.
The video thing just really takes me out of he show.
Did you ever watch L&O:UK? A lot of the episodes are straight remakes of Mothership episodes, adapted for the difference in legal systems and culture. But boy did they use London’s camera systems to get evidence. It wasn’t so unbelievable there. Still is here, as you note.
I did. And I believed it because it’s government cameras. I thought it was an interesting take on the difference between policing in London and NYC.
Plus wigs. 
We enjoy it.
Another Dick Wolf show is F.B.I., which airs on CBS and is also set in New York City. It does the same thing of having the characters immediately getting video from public and private cameras throughout the city.
I think we’re supposed to accept that the timeline is compressed for dramatic purposes.
Oh boy do they ever! They have immediate access to cameras everywhere, both public and private. With better than 1080p resolution and perfect lighting (unless the plot demands otherwise).
Immediate access to camera footage is the modern “a hacker got us the info”, or “we tracked their (ancient flip) phone’s gps”, or “enhance!”. It moves the plot along, and as you say, condenses how long it really takes to do this, but too much of it and you wonder why there is crime at all. Just find the footage of the crime, use all those cameras to follow the killer back to where he started his day, or where he ended up if he didn’t go home, and arrest him.
eta I love it when it’s Sunday morning at 3:00 am and they need some data from the phone company or a bank or something, and they’re “wake them up!”. I tell you what, you call me at 3 am Sunday morning and expect me to go into work, and see what happens.
There’s a show under Discovery’s umbrella which relies on some of this premise and, I presume, illustrates how long it really takes. I haven’t actually seen it.
Tonight’s episode was the season finale. Thank goodness.
I am not a fan of the racial animosity cases from the “classic” years, but sheesh this one makes them look wonderful. The new writing just doesn’t cut it.
When the police chief bitches to McCoy about “defunding the police” I realize why it’s a good thing I’m not DA. because I would have said “well maybe if you would stop sticking plungers up black guys’ butts and killing black men for selling loosies, then maybe they wouldn’t want to defund you!” But I guess I’m “woke”.
Huh. I thought tonight’s episode was really good, probably the best of the new season.