Law & Order (TV Series) Big Bang (1994) User Reviews

An episode full of irony and sub atomic particles

[AlsExGal · 9/10 · 6 September 2016]

The wife of a prestigious academic in the field of physics is killed by a letter bomb. The immediate suspect is her husband, Edward Manning (Harris Yulin). However, evidence leads to an embittered post doc in physics, Max Weiss (Randle Mell). He is working as a doorman, supporting his wife and three kids in a tiny apartment, unable to get a job in his chosen field. More digging leads back to the fact that the feted physicist Manning stole Weiss' idea after turning him down for a grant.

The irony here? Manning was in the process of divorcing his wife and it was going to be a bitter and expensive fight. If Weiss was attempting to get revenge on Manning, what he gave him instead was a get out of marriage free card. But don't think that the duplicitous Manning has his foot out of the bear trap yet. Weiss confesses to the crime, but claims he was desperate for money to support his wife and kids and that Manning paid him to kill his wife. The deal gives Weiss a sentence for man one (manslaughter first degree) rather than the 25 years to life for straight up murder. Plus Manning DID pay Weiss thousands of dollars shortly before the murder. So what does Manning do? Go to trial and maybe jail with his academic reputation intact, or does he rat himself out on the witness stand as a thief and plagiarist, ruining a lifetime reputation but staying out of jail? He is at the end of his career, and you might think this would be an easy decision, but Manning has the ego the size of a Kip's Big Boy and professional disgrace would be on parallel with jail to him.

Well, don't worry too much about Manning's conundrum because executive D.A. Ben Stone decides to go after him for grand larceny - stealing Weiss' idea. But first Stone has to prove the idea was worth something in the first place, which Manning is denying. The entire episode is actually a pretty good and accurate physics lesson.

Some of the things I really liked about this episode - when ADA Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy) goes to talk to Weiss' wife about the case and the wife, a very sweet very stay-at-home mom type, asks Claire "What will happen to Max? What will happen to us?". It's easy to forget the families who may have their lives turned upside down when the guilty breadwinner goes to jail. I also liked when detectives Briscoe and Logan were questioning Manning about his work and Manning arrogantly told them he would lend them a freshman physics book when he was discussing a complex physics topic. I'd like to see a copy of that freshman physics book, because as an engineer I can tell you what they were talking about was way over the head of any freshman. It was just a way of showing Manning's arrogance.

I'd recommend this one. It's got some great twists and turns.

A big banger of an episode

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 14 October 2020]

There is not much to add to what has already been said here about "Big Bang" and very well, am familiar with a few of them already from elsewhere and they've always done well at reviewing individual episodes. The concept of the story on paper does come over as very fascinating, even if the subject is not usually an expertise of mine or a subject that usually interests me it is interesting when it is portrayed on film and television when done right.

"Big Bang" does a great job with it and for me it is not just one of the best episodes of the second half of Season 4 but also one of the best overall of the season. If not quite one of my favourites of 'Law and Order' as an overall show. As others have also said, it is also one of the most entertaining and one that really illuminated me. Those that love great character interaction, little things, smart dialogue, edge and tough topics dealt with uncompromisingly should find a good deal to like about "Big Bang".

Admittedly, the plot requires a lot of attention, perhaps more so than usual. After a few easy to figure out-able episodes that preceeded "Big Bang", Season 4 and 'Law and Order' returns to more complexity in one of the season's more intricate cases. Really loved how twisty and unpredictable the case was but there were occasions where it was a touch over-complicated and needed a little more time for each revelation to breathe.

However, "Big Bang" is shot with the right amount of intimacy without being claustrophobic and that the editing has become increasingly tighter over-time has been great too. Nice use of locations too. The music doesn't get over-scored or overwrought, even in the more dramatic revelation moments. The direction doesn't try to do too much and is understated but never flat or unsure.

In this episode, the writing is a major star. It is lean and smart, with plenty of very amusing lines and exchanges. Especially concerning the collapse of the universe and when talking about larcerny, Schiff has one of his most priceless lines already mentioned here. The character interaction is some of the season's best, Briscoe and Logan are such a great, tough and amusing pairing and the chemistry in the legal scenes is pretty electric when the tension rises. The story is not perfectly executed, but is never dull and caught me by surprise more than once. What sounds conventional at first turns out to be not what it first appeared to be by the end of the episode, and what it had to say about its subject really educated me.

Characterisation is spot on as is the acting of the regulars. Harris Yulin is unsettling as Manning without being too obvious, with one line (the one regarding a single life) sticking out as equally unsettling.

Summing up, great episode and one of the season's best. 9/10

Scientific reputation on the line

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 21 October 2018]

A letter bomb arrives at the address of Harris Yulin's estranged wife and kills her upon her opening the package. Yulin is a professor of physics and at one time a wunderkind in the scientific community. But time has passed him by and he's not a very nice man because of it.

The investigation leads to Randall Mell who is now working as a doorman because Yulin had him blackballed in the scientific community. I can't pretend to know what it must be like for a man of his education to be reduced to that job to pay the rent and put food on the table for his family.

At the same time Yulin is a piece of work more worried about his scientific reputation than anything else including convicting his wife's murderer. Wait until you see what Michael Moriarty has to do to get him in court.

Cosmic justice would have had Yulin as the victim, but the cosmos ain't always just.

Most entertaining (and educational) L&O episode

[jbirks106 · 10/10 · 6 July 2016]

As a quantum physics primer, this episode is about as close as network TV is going to get. Where most shows would dumb down the scientific angle, this episode presents proton decay accurately (albeit breezily) in the context of a scientific grudge match between a has-been and a never-was. Harris Yulin made a career out of playing the eminence gris, and he's perfect for the role of the washed-up Edward Manning. Randall Mell as the erstwhile up-and-comer moonlighting as a doorman (looking like an "organ grinder's monkey) is likewise brilliant. Even secondary characters are well cast, such as Jeff Gendleman as the lab rat perpetually chasing his PhD and calls everyone "fella".

The most entertaining moments are shared by the prosecutors who are totally in over their heads. Steven Hill's perpetually jaundiced countenance is particularly priceless. Told that the case essentially comes down to the way protons fall apart, Schiff says "Terrific. Now to win a larceny trial all we have to do is prove how the universe ends."

Of course the case started with a murder of Manning's ex-wife, a bit of collateral damage in "Big Bang" who's all but forgotten by the halfway mark. Manning's remark that a single human life is as nothing in the timescale of the universe is chilling. No human life, it seems, is worth a man's scientific reputation; this, ironically, is what Weiss and Manning share and is their undoing.

One I'll Happily Watch Again

[Better_TV · 9/10 · 2 May 2018]

Smart script here, on more than one front. Lots of cool science related to proton decay, and lots of smart character work from two opposing scientists, played by Harris Yulin and Randle Mell. Both men are self-absorbed for different reasons, and it all results in an innocent's death. The way the prosecutor's office uses these men against each other in court makes for great entertainment, and the actors' performances are fantastic. As the L&O "Unofficial Companion" book puts it, this episode is about "one man who loves his work too much, another who has no professional respect for it, and the woman who became a casualty of both."

Keep your eyes peeled for a scene where Detective Logan (Chris Noth) philosophizes about the meaning of existence, given the universe's tendency towards entropy. Of course, he's brought back to earth by the always lovable Jerry Orbach as Detective Lennie Briscoe.

Excellent television, this is.

Amusing.

[rmax304823 · 9 September 2011]

This one is a little complicated but stands out because it has some very amusing exchanges. Not that anyone laughs. No one ever laughs seriously in "Law and Order." A physicist's wife is blown up by a letter bomb. The makings are traced to a youngish physicist, a PhD (Mell) who is now working as a doorman because his research application was turned down. The physicist who deep-sixed the application (Yulin, perennial bad guy) is a middle-aged physicist who evidently stole the ideas in the application and used them in his own research. Mell sent the homemade bomb to Yulin's address where it may have been opened by Yulin's wife by mistake.

The DA's office can't convincingly link Mell and Yulin in any kind of conspiracy, although they suspect Yulin helped Mell prepare the bomb in order to deliberately kill his embittered wife. So they decide to attack the smug Yulin through his reputation. They charge him with grand larceny in the fourth degree; viz., appropriating Mell's theory of proton decay as his own, while disparaging Mell's theory publicly.

I know it's a little confusing, but it boils down to the DA's office determining that Yulin stole Mell's idea. "Pardon me," says the phlegmatic Yulin, "but doesn't larceny imply that the thing stolen was of some value? (Mell's) idea was nonsense." Now Hill, Moriarty, and Hennessy have to disprove Yulin's statement. They must demonstrate in court that the idea had merit. Moriarty confides to Hennessy, "You know what I took for my science requirement? Physics for Poets." Hennessy: "Elementary Geology. Rocks for Jocks." None of them knows anything about physics.

They present their strategy to Hill in his office. It's all about protons falling apart in a certain way. Hill stops chewing his sandwich. "Is this something I should be worried about?" Hennessy tells him that it only means the universe will decay in a particular way. "Oh, great! Now, all we have to do to win a grand larceny case is prove how the world will end." She assures him it can be done. "Fine. Who're you supposed to call as a witness, the Allmighty?"

I had particular sympathy for the two physicists in this story -- one past his prime and just having missed the Nobel, and the other a youngish post-doctoral fellow who just can't seem to make a living at what he does. I was once in the same position, a scientist of sorts, with a doctorate and a longish list of publications, applying for a job as a pizza delivery boy. The "boys" were all dressed in colorful Edwardian costumes with straw hats. "Any delivery experience, sir?" asked the kid who was half my age and would have been my boss.

It's even worse for physicists. If you haven't made it in physics by the time you're thirty, you're over the hill. Mell's future would have featured a colorful costume too, a semi-military get up with a lot of the gold braid that doormen wear. Mell's simmering anger made a lot of sense. He had many years of hard work and, yes, devotion invested in that doctorate. I could sympathize with Yulin's desire for professional recognition too -- nobody is in it for the money -- but not with his theft. Stealing someone's idea is worse than cooking the books.

Publish or perish

[safenoe · 7/10 · 7 November 2023]

Dann Florek returns behind the camera to direct Big Bang, which is kind of a Law and Order version of The Big Bang, with protons and accelerator chambers and gyros and atoms and laptops and thesis and even VCRs (!) all in the research world. I enjoy the Law and Order episodes where there's snow in New York City, and Big Bang is no exception. We even get a researcher who has unkempt hair who is quite serious about his research.

We even get a former student who's working as an apartment doorman, such are the hard times that befall researchers who look at their principals the wrong way much to their chagrin.

Very silly, unrealistic view of the scientific community, and, poor acting

[ColonelPuntridge · 3/10 · 7 March 2018]

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS AT LEAST ONE SPOILER

The characters in this episode are very silly, nothing like real scientists. Sure, there's crime in the scientific community--look up Amy Bishop who opened fire on her colleagues when they denied her tenure, or look up the extortion attempt connected with the faulty data in the lab of Peter G. Schultz. But this episode has TWO scientists at the same university, both willing to commit serious crimes (one of which is murder) in order to secure their reputations. Crimes like this in science are so rare that the probability of two happening at the same time is vanishingly small.

Also, the technical writing is not good. If protons were decaying, we would have detected it long ago. L&O's technical people are usually much better.

Finally, the acting is very poor. Harris Yulin, thoroughly typecast as a low-class cop-type on shows like Kojak and movies like Scarface, is utterly unbelievable trying to play an almost-Nobel-Prizewinning physicist.

The best feature in this episode is that some of the detectives have funny lines musing about the ultimate collapse of the universe.