Legal drama has come a long way since the days of PERRY MASON. Back then, the innocent party was always exonerated, the guilty party was always convicted, and justice was always served. It was entertaining, comforting, reassuring, well-written, well-acted drama but still a sophisticated, grownup's fairy tale. Anybody with any sense had to either write it off as pure escapism or feel angry at being taken for a fool. LAW & ORDER, on the other hand, has always featured much more intelligent and believable stories, many of which are inspired by real events. However, many of the episodes are anything but comforting, and some of them even made me angry. All too often, the bad guys get off on legal technicalities or because of judges who sympathize with the wrong people. And sometimes, even when the bad guys do get convicted, we aren't sure whether justice has been served. But I, for one, never felt like I was being taken for a fool.
I have, however, felt like I was being taken the long way around to a resolution on many occasions, which is my one major complaint about the show. Sometimes it seems like these folks spend the whole first half of an episode barking up the wrong tree. Okay, so that's probably how it is in real life, but I find it very frustrating to spend half the show thinking that the guilty party is a hungry man who robbed a pizza delivery boy and killed him by mistake, only to discover that said robber stumbled across the dead delivery boy by accident, and that the real killer is a Mafia hit man and that the pizzeria who employed the delivery boy wasn't buying their anchovies from a Mafia manufacturer. No, that's not a description of an actual episode, but some of them are pretty close.
But to end on another positive note, I'd like to pass along an observation from my wife. In the ten years or so that LAW & ORDER has been running, it has remained focused on the crimes being solved, and never succumbed to the temptation to go off on soap operatic side trips about the sordid details of the characters' personal lives.. Although I think a few TINY personal side trips might spice things up -- like maybe a bit more about Briscoe's battle with alcoholism, and his related divorce -- I agree that too much of this would bring the show down, like it's brought down several other good shows.
I have, however, felt like I was being taken the long way around to a resolution on many occasions, which is my one major complaint about the show. Sometimes it seems like these folks spend the whole first half of an episode barking up the wrong tree. Okay, so that's probably how it is in real life, but I find it very frustrating to spend half the show thinking that the guilty party is a hungry man who robbed a pizza delivery boy and killed him by mistake, only to discover that said robber stumbled across the dead delivery boy by accident, and that the real killer is a Mafia hit man and that the pizzeria who employed the delivery boy wasn't buying their anchovies from a Mafia manufacturer. No, that's not a description of an actual episode, but some of them are pretty close.
But to end on another positive note, I'd like to pass along an observation from my wife. In the ten years or so that LAW & ORDER has been running, it has remained focused on the crimes being solved, and never succumbed to the temptation to go off on soap operatic side trips about the sordid details of the characters' personal lives.. Although I think a few TINY personal side trips might spice things up -- like maybe a bit more about Briscoe's battle with alcoholism, and his related divorce -- I agree that too much of this would bring the show down, like it's brought down several other good shows.