Law & Order (TV Series) Harm (1999) User Reviews

"When Lennie Takes The Side of The Ex-Wife, I Know We Have Something There"

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 12 July 2011]

In the episode Harm when S. Epetha Merkerson gives that assessment of Jerry Orbach siding with an ex-wife you know you're in for an intriguing Law And Order story.

But this episode has Angie Harmon taking center stage and doing the investigation and taking the number one seat for a case she developed and believed in over Sam Waterston. This episode starts as an assault on a retired divorce attorney, then moves to a disgruntled ex-wife of a doctor who did the assault and that leads to a medical malpractice case that turns out to be Criminally Negligent Homicide. A really nice bit of writing on this episode had all these gliding together and making perfectly valid sense.

Harmon was always my favorite of all the ADAs who second chaired Sam Waterston. Her instincts get aroused, she does her own investigation and she discovers an incredible case of cover-up when these doctors perform laser surgery with a new piece of equipment they're not really familiar with and which in fact is being operated during the surgery by a company salesperson played by Melinda Wade. That's what gets her to court and a trial of these doctors.

It may have been Jerry Orbach's unexpected sympathies that started the ball rolling, but this fine episode belongs to Angie Harmon.

First, Do The Patient No Harm.

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 3 January 2013]

Up to the usual standards. An assault leads Briscoe and Curtis into the operating room where a patient died under confusing circumstances. A simple operation involved the use of equipment so new that the sales representative was called into the OR to operate it. It didn't work. Despite warnings from the OR nurse, the patient died. It isn't known whether the operation was a success. To find out, we'd have to know if the team were.

The docs I know are all principled, most of them far more than I am, but the episode is interesting because it illustrates the insidious way in which profit can come to have precedence over prudence in the practice of medicine.

I used to teach this stuff in a class in Social Problems and it's fascinating. Some docs in private practice receive most of their income from doing trials of new drugs. They're paid by the pharmaceutical companies to do it. And the results are duly published in journals funded by the pharmaceutical companies. The new meds always seem to work. (The same thing goes on in the oil industry, where scientists are paid to discover that there is no such thing as anthropogenic climate change.)

The docs in this case received kickbacks from the Med-Tech Corporation for using their faulty equipment, but in most cases it's all thoroughly legitimate. All that money that pharmaceutical companies say goes into research? The money that justifies the high prices for their meds? Some of it is used in an ethical search for medicines that don't yet exist but would fill a purpose. But much of it goes into research on "me-too" drugs. These are drugs that seek to imitate already successful drugs by jiggling an atom or two on some prosthetic group of the original molecule, just different enough to avoid patent infringement. If the "new" drug turns out to do the same thing as the original -- voila! A share of the market! I'll now get down off this podium if somebody will lend me a hand. Thank you. Oops. Damned game ankle again.

This case really gets under Angie Harmon's skin for some reason. Of course she's always more hard-nosed than Sam Waterston, and as usual Steven Hill is in the background, shrugging his shoulders in irritation and advising them to make a deal.

The miscreant doctor winds up going to jail. He ran an obstetrical mill on Park Avenue and he wears his hair in a style fashionable when this episode was shot. The doc who testified at the O. J. Simpson trial wore a similar style. I won't even bother to describe it. He's going to have a hard time, even in a minimum-security facility. Besides losing his Aesculapian authority, he'll have to suffer a prison haircut, the most unkindest cut of all, and look like Moe in the Three Stooges.

First do no harm

[TheLittleSongbird · 8/10 · 6 October 2021]

"Harm" has a very gutsy topic, 'Law and Order' and the entire 'Law and Order' franchise were no strangers to challenging and controversial subjects but not many at this point had topics that took a lot of guts to tackle at this time. Have said many times about having a lot of admiration for how 'Law and Order' and franchise approached the subjects they tackled, back in times where it would have been easy to shy away in fear of offending but that's actually not the case a lot of the time.

On the whole, "Harm" does a very good job with its subject matter. Sure, the detectives have conducted themselves more realistically in other episodes and one half is superior to the other. Do agree that Carmichael is the best and most interesting character in the episode and that it is her antics that make "Harm" the highly intriguing episode that it is. It is not one of the best episodes of 'Law and Order' or quite one of the best of Season 9, but it is still very good.

The first half or so is nothing out of the ordinary and could have been tauter, Briscoe is the aspect that makes it still worth watching though.

As said, other episodes of 'Law and Order' have their detectives investigating more realistically and not resorting to drastic measures to get what they need.

On the other hand, "Harm" is a lot more intriguing in the second half and the more detective-oriented approach Carmichael takes to the case was very interesting to see and a great way of getting to know her more. Did find myself caring for how the case was going to end and like 'Law and Order' on form the subject matter is handled uncompromisingly but with tact as well, very intriguing to hear the different viewpoints presented.

Photography while very close up doesn't come over as too static or filmed play-like, while the production values are typically solid and have subtle atmosphere while not being drab and keeping things simple. When the music is used it is haunting and has a melancholic edge that is not overdone. The episode is sympathetically yet uncompromisingly directed. The script is tight and thought provoking and the acting is very good all round, with the episode indeed belonging to Angie Harmon. Carmichael is already very well settled and Harmon gives one of her better appearances here.

In conclusion, very good. 8/10.

What the gynecologist should have said

[ColonelPuntridge · 7/10 · 30 August 2018]

The script-writers missed an opportunity: at the end of the episode, Assistant District Attorney Abbie Carmichael says to the gynecologist whom she is charging with murder: "Doctor, all those women who you rushed in and out of your examination room; do you remember their faces, or did you not bother to look up?" The doctor does not answer. But he should have replied: "What do you mean? I'm a gynecologist. I WAS looking up!"

(Ba-DUMP-bump.)

So many goofs

[evony-jwm · 5/10 · 17 March 2021]

Writers have Harmon going detective, which would never ever happen in real life.

Harmon is the only thing that makes this episode watchable.

An almost second-degree murder; of corrupt lawyer, to bad clients, to no alibi woman client that's guilty, who whines about nasty ex husband..

Writers then maliciously investigate every aspect of said ex's life until guilty of murder along with all known associates including medical equipment mfg.. and it's all laughs and giggles.

They also drive one of the indicted to suicide, then illegally break attorney client for more laughs..

Concentrate on Harmon