Have always admired anything (film, television episode etc.) that deals with a hard-hitting and important subject, which is always a bold thing to do with the amount of traps there can be, and especially when they are executed in a pulling no punches way. With "Point of View", the subject matter is as hard-hitting and hard to portray right as one can get. One too that has always been relevant and always worth addressing in any medium, and one that anything that tackles it deserves credit for even trying.
"Point of View" is not one of the best episodes of 'Law and Order's' Season 3 and it is a slight letdown after the brilliance of the previous outing "Prince of Darkness". It does a really good job with its topic though, what could have been heavy-handed and sleazy is instead thought-provoking and sensitive. Not always easy to achieve and not always achieved. If the final moments were as good as the rest of what came before, "Point of View" would have been great but settles for a strong very good.
It did start feeling rushed towards the end.
Also would have liked the denouement to have had more of a rounded off feel and one with more punch. It did feel somewhat anti-climactic and rather safe for a type of episode that deserved a real emotional kick at the end.
Overall though, the story is great. It never felt obvious or over-complicated and the moral dilemmas that surround this difficult and divisive issue are insightful and not executed heavy-handedly, intriguing hugely. That was a major strength in prime-'Law and Order'. Interesting questions are raised as ever and "Point of View" explores them well, another general strength of prime-'Law and Order'. The legal scenes are tense and thought-probing, they also have great chemistry, strong as always performances from Michael Moriarty, Richard Brooks and also Elaine Stritch in the first of two appearances on the show.
The investigative parts of the case also interest, and just as much (at a point of the show's run when the legal scenes tended to be more interesting) and don't come over as routine. Paul Sorvino gets a worthy send-off in a brief last appearance and Jerry Orbach makes a promising first impression as one of the understandably longest-serving 'Law and Order' characters (though he did give better performances when he was properly settled). The chemistry between him and Chris Noth gels quite well if not completely sparkling yet.
From start to finish, there is a lot of intelligent scripting with some nice wisecracks to balance out the seriousness. The production values are typically slick and the music fitting. We also have a nuanced performance from Lisa Eichorn as an intriguingly ambiguous character.
Bottom line, very good if not quite great episode. 8/10
"Point of View" is not one of the best episodes of 'Law and Order's' Season 3 and it is a slight letdown after the brilliance of the previous outing "Prince of Darkness". It does a really good job with its topic though, what could have been heavy-handed and sleazy is instead thought-provoking and sensitive. Not always easy to achieve and not always achieved. If the final moments were as good as the rest of what came before, "Point of View" would have been great but settles for a strong very good.
It did start feeling rushed towards the end.
Also would have liked the denouement to have had more of a rounded off feel and one with more punch. It did feel somewhat anti-climactic and rather safe for a type of episode that deserved a real emotional kick at the end.
Overall though, the story is great. It never felt obvious or over-complicated and the moral dilemmas that surround this difficult and divisive issue are insightful and not executed heavy-handedly, intriguing hugely. That was a major strength in prime-'Law and Order'. Interesting questions are raised as ever and "Point of View" explores them well, another general strength of prime-'Law and Order'. The legal scenes are tense and thought-probing, they also have great chemistry, strong as always performances from Michael Moriarty, Richard Brooks and also Elaine Stritch in the first of two appearances on the show.
The investigative parts of the case also interest, and just as much (at a point of the show's run when the legal scenes tended to be more interesting) and don't come over as routine. Paul Sorvino gets a worthy send-off in a brief last appearance and Jerry Orbach makes a promising first impression as one of the understandably longest-serving 'Law and Order' characters (though he did give better performances when he was properly settled). The chemistry between him and Chris Noth gels quite well if not completely sparkling yet.
From start to finish, there is a lot of intelligent scripting with some nice wisecracks to balance out the seriousness. The production values are typically slick and the music fitting. We also have a nuanced performance from Lisa Eichorn as an intriguingly ambiguous character.
Bottom line, very good if not quite great episode. 8/10
