[QUOTE=Autumn Almanac]
I agree. Abby Carmichael’s “Texan tough chick” thing was kind of cliched, but at least she had a strong personality.
[/QUOTE]
I will always lover her for her “hang 'em all” line.
[QUOTE=ivylass]
For crying out loud, the series has been on for nearly 20 years! I remember seeing Abby Carmichael with a huge cell phone…and she’s a fairly recent ADA!
I don’t care about dated…I want to see some of the classics, dammit!
[/QUOTE]
I’m with you. I’ve been watching since the first episode, and I’ve probably seen 99% of them. George Dzundza is highly underrated and I was very sad he left the show - he had a great rapport with Chris Noth in that first season, much better than Paul Sorvino in Season Two.
You just cannot be the two-part “The Torrents of Greed” - wonderful stuff.
And Stephen Hill was one of the best actors on TV. It’s been a total downhill slide in the DA’s chair since he left. (The episode where his wife dies is simply tragic - he nearly brings me to tears with a tiny wince and whimper even after seeing it 10 times - superb acting!)
[QUOTE=Autumn Almanac]
I agree. Abby Carmichael’s “Texan tough chick” thing was kind of cliched, but at least she had a strong personality.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve heard this a lot (that people liked her for having a strong personality), but I hated her because she had ONE facial expression that she used all the time (particular in her first season). So while I agree the character was more interesting than what has come since, the execution left a lot to be desired, IMO. YMMV.
Now that Crossing Jordan is done with, can’t we get Claire Kincaid back from her coma 
[QUOTE=ShadowFacts]
<snip>
And Stephen Hill was one of the best actors on TV. It’s been a total downhill slide in the DA’s chair since he left. (The episode where his wife dies is simply tragic - he nearly brings me to tears with a tiny wince and whimper even after seeing it 10 times - superb acting!)
[/QUOTE]
I recently saw that. That was very affecting and one of the top moments of any TV episode.
Yes it was. It made me cry and my hubby get misty.
I’m just happy Dennis Farina is gone.
Not really apropos of the OP, I suppose, but there you go.
[QUOTE=ShadowFacts]
And Stephen Hill was one of the best actors on TV. It’s been a total downhill slide in the DA’s chair since he left. (The episode where his wife dies is simply tragic - he nearly brings me to tears with a tiny wince and whimper even after seeing it 10 times - superb acting!)
[/QUOTE]
I think it was all the more powerful because this show rarely focuses on the personal lives of the characters…hell, Jack and Claire’s affair was implied, but never stated until her “final” episode.
So, all we need to know about Adam’s love for his wife was very poignantly displayed in that final scene. Because we weren’t subject to the whole dramatic dying and visiting in the hospital and has she signed the living will and do you want to donate her organs extra stuff, her death scene had a huge punch.
[QUOTE=ShadowFacts]
(The episode where his wife dies is simply tragic - he nearly brings me to tears with a tiny wince and whimper even after seeing it 10 times - superb acting!)
[/QUOTE]
Definitely a great scene. Was that Adam Schiff’s last episode?
[QUOTE=GuanoLad]
I’m just happy Dennis Farina is gone.
Not really apropos of the OP, I suppose, but there you go.
[/QUOTE]
May we never speak of it again. Amen.
My TiVo caught the second aired episode, “Subterranean Homeboy Blues,” at 5am yesterday. I wonder if that’s why you’re not seeing them, ivylass – they’re on at the crack of dawn!
That was a good episode – Cynthia Nixon was in it, and she looked about 12 years old. 
[QUOTE=ShelliBean]
May we never speak of it again. Amen.
[/QUOTE]
I didn’t mind him. Milena Govich, on the other hand…
They’re on A & E. I see them all the time. I really don’t like Jack McCoy and I jump at the opportunity to watch Law and Order without him.
[QUOTE=Autumn Almanac]
Definitely a great scene. Was that Adam Schiff’s last episode?
[/QUOTE]
No, he went on for at least another season after that, IIRC.
[QUOTE=BaneSidhe]
Any ep with Jerry Orbach is fine by me. I adored Lenny Briscoe.
[/QUOTE]
Heh, you might like the beginning of this comic then. Brian Clevinger (writer of the webcomic 8-Bit Theater, superhero novel Nuklear Age, and indie comic book Atomic Robo) also has made several fanboyish comments about LB over the years.
Lenny is my all-time favorite cop character. Jerry Orbach is a very talented actor, but this will always be the only role I really associate him with.
Oops, missed the edit window.
I got into L&O around the time Carey Lowell was still Waterston’s ADA. I learned to love the older casts though thanks to A&E (especially their frequent marathons).
My interest in the series started to flag a little towards the end of the time Angie Harmon’s character (Abby Carmichael) was on, and I pretty much lost any interest after Jerry Orbach and her had both left. Can’t say why; I still love all the old episodes up to that point.
While I can easily say Adam Schiff and Lenny Briscoe were my favorites in their roles, I generally don’t really like picking favorites. Chris Noth and Benjamin Bratt both had pretty good runs imho, and all the ADA’s up to and including Abby were great. I liked Stone and McCoy, and my preference has shifted over the years.
[QUOTE=alphaboi867]
Didn’t one of the early ones have them dealing with the Soviet consul?
[/QUOTE]
Similarly, a first- or second-season episode was about AIDS sufferers at a time, well before even AZT, when it was a 100% certain death sentence. In reruns, a text screen and narrator is added to the end, acknowledging that this particular episode is dated and medical advances have since been made.
Heck, in that episode was an AIDS activist who said he remembered when the disease was called GRID, i.e. ~1982.
[QUOTE=GuanoLad]
I’m just happy Dennis Farina is gone.
[/QUOTE]
Really? Why did you not like him?
[QUOTE=Green Bean]
Really? Why did you not like him?
[/QUOTE]
I know why I didn’t. The recurring bit where he’d threaten sotto voce to beat up a witness/suspect (who then instantly submitted) irritated me. I’d’ve cheered if one of them had stood his ground and muttered back “I’m a black belt. You try it, and you’re gonna be the cop in the wheelchair, pal.”
The guy who played the black ADA, IIRC, later played a demented bounty hunter on the last episode of Firefly.
“Are you Alliance?”
“Am I a Lion? No. But I do have a mighty roar.”
“I asked if you were Alliance.”
“Oh. I thought you… that’s weird.”
[QUOTE=Raguleader]
The guy who played the black ADA, IIRC, later played a demented bounty hunter on the last episode of Firefly.
“Are you Alliance?”
“Am I a Lion? No. But I do have a mighty roar.”
“I asked if you were Alliance.”
“Oh. I thought you… that’s weird.”
[/QUOTE]
THANK YOU!
I kept watching that episode wondering where the heck I’d seen that guy.