Law & Order (1990-2020)

Love how the show had an amazing repertoire of New York stage actors appearing in recurring roles as lawyers and judges.

Dianne Wiest thought she was too good for network TV.

She was not.

[quote] Dianne Wiest thought she was too good for network TV. She was not.

A gal has to pay the rent.

William Mapother, first cousin of Tom Cruise, was on an episode of Law & Order Special Victims Unit (alas not the original). He also played a character named Eric Porter on Hawaii Five-O (alas not the original).

Gee, thanks for that non-connection to the topic.

I know this is a distinctly minority opinion but I preferred Dennis Farina to Jerry Orbach. Farina was a cop before he became a professional actor and he brought a grittiness to his role.

I loved how Farina’s cop would do something dodgy and then say, it’s okay, we’re authorized but I like all the iterations except the current one.

Jill Hennessy was my first girl crush. Intelligent, gorgeous, classy, and a little bit of a temper.

Benjamin Bratt!

I've started re-watching it. Seasons 13 and up are available on Peacock, for which I pay $2.11 a month. Unfortunately, Lenny leaves the show at the end of season 14. Fortunately, I'm liking Fontana more this time than I did originally. I guess having the last 19 years to come to terms with Jerry Orbach's death helps.

I always felt Paul Robinette was gay.

Is Richard Brooks gay? He has a beautiful chiseled face.

Jerry Orbach as Det. Lennie Briscoe is my patron saint. I also liked the character played by Leslie Hendrix (Dr. Elizabeth Rogers).

Jerry Orbach and Steven Hill so comforting

R2 The problem with Wiest was her character.

Steven Hill was on the show from the beginning. Fred Dalton Thompson was L&O's idea of the George W. Bush Administration.

After Lenny was gone, the show was all downhill.

I grew to like, or maybe accept, Anthony Anderson and Jeremy Sisto, r15, but not as much as Jerry Orbach. I don't even remember their characters' names. I am liking Hugh Dancy and Jeffrey Donovan very much, though. They've been favorites of mine since early days (Daniel Deronda and HLOTS, respectively).

Yeah, it is a real shame Orbach died.

The peak seasons were 4 to 9.

Chris Noth and Richard brooks were so gorgeous in those first seasons.

I liked L&O until Mike Logan was "transferred to Staten Island." Rey Curtis was the worst character in the history of television.

The holier than thou prosecutors made this unwatchable to me. This being NYC it's obvious there naturally would be a shortage of POC defendants if an upper class white businessman could instead be taught a lesson.

^ Yawn, only like 10% of murderers are female

michael moriarty was great in the first few seasons but had some sort of paranoid breakdown related to Janet Reno and fled to canada, randy quaid-style

R21 I always felt SVU was holier than thou.

Jack McCoy was definitely arrogant, but Adam Schiff, Claire Kincaid, Jamie Ross, Abbie Carmichael, or Arthur Branch usually knocked him down a few pegs.

Moriarty is talented, too bad he's nuts

R21 I always felt Stone was a sad water sign and honestly was passionate about crime meets the punishment.

The first three episodes are about class, race, and AIDS. Pretty risky for 1990.

Michael Moriarty has a great mid-Atlantic accent for DLers to mimic.

I hated Michael Moriarty and didn't take the habit of watching the show regularly until he was gone. Other than MM, there were detectives and prosecutors I liked and disliked, yet I enjoyed the series regardless. I've seen most episodes except the MM period.

It was an interesting show to be so mathematically formulaic and stylized, yet succeed so we'll because?/despite? this.

I prefer series like these where a story wraps up in one episode. I am not a fan of shows (like Lost), where you had to have watched from the very beginning to have any clue what was happening. All the Star Trek episodes follow the same wrap-up-in-one formula, although both Deep Space Nine and Voyager had an overarching longer story to keep track of. L & O is very comforting, in spite of the violence, because you know that the episode will come to a conclusion within one hour , for better or for worse. (And somewhat realistic in that often the bad guy is not convicted).

I think DL is of one mind that Jesse Martin is gay (and was fine looking in most of the series). I thought Sisto was attractive - not necessarily model-handsome, but masculine and sexy. We know that Raul Esparza is fond of male/male sex, because he came out publicly. Lots of gay characters through the series - usually murderers or victims - but seldom good looking. Chris Noth was sexy in his L & O years, but now we know he's been accused of a lot of shenanigans by female co-stars.

DL is also in agreement that the one blonde assistant DA (Elisabeth Rohm) was a rather wooden actress, and that we were all blindsided by her parting comment that she was being fired for being a lesbian. I liked a lot of the other assistant DAs. I was genuinely sad when the one was killed off in a car accident, with implication that Lenny was partly at fault.

I was managing a NYC salon for a celebrity stylist in 2002, and one of the hairdressers quit suddenly and became L&O key stylist for the show (for almost the entire run). Brian was a sweetheart to work with, but our boss at the time was SO shady, and I remember always giving him his paycheck first so he could run and cash it at the checkcasher’s so it wouldn’t bounce! LOL

I’ve always thought it would’ve been a fabulous job, meeting and styling all those celebs, but had worked on production before and couldn’t handle 18 hour days.

I've always appreciated how easily L&O rolled characters in and out. George Dzundza doesn't like the LA to NYC commute? Kill him, bring in Paul Sorvino, who apparently was a pain, so shoot Phil Cerreta and intro Lenny Briscoe.

Having said that, I do think the show stalled on doing that once it settled into Van Buren and Briscoe in the stationhouse, with so few changes... the young and beautiful ADAs continued, but no other changes.

As others have said, I too really, really enjoyed Dennis Farina as Joe Fontana. His one and gone season is a drag - it felt like the writers had a solid back story for him just teased during those 22 episodes (the roll of cash, very expensive clothes, coming to NYC from Chicago so late in his career...)

And OP, I think you missed including Milena Govich as Nina Cassidy. She did the season after Farina.

One last comment at the very beginning of the show, Dann Florek was quite beefy and sexy. Unfortunately, he was always buttoned up in a shirt, tie and suspenders.

R7, Moi aussi. The new guys, cops and lawyers, look like refugees from Ozempic Land.

Annie Parisse was the best ADA they had. Great actress. The second-best ADA in the L&O universe after Stephanie March.

I had stopped watching during the Elisabeth Rohm years because she was just so fucking awful.

When Parisse came on, the reviews were good, and I started watching again. When she was cut after just over a season, I stopped watching again.

I love this franchise and admire the way it has been kept reasonably fresh for 30 years.

It's wild to me that NBC had to lay down the law and require the producers to add some women to the cast to ensure renewal after the first few seasons—considering how key "representation" is to everything now.

The current cast is not clicking with me but the writing is worse.

i liked jill hennessy and carey lowell. angie harmon was dreadful, always yelling and overacting.

Does anyone know why Parise was fired? She was a great ADA. It was nice that they put out a statement that she left voluntarily, but someone who worked at NBC told me she was fired, but did not know why.

I liked Angie Harmon as Abbie Carmichael. I remember one scene where it her and a bunch of men- I think they were oil or Wall Street executives. They being difficult to her and she said something like "okay, let's play ball," and she got exactly what she wanted.

I liked the idea of a young Republican Texan on the show, particular to contrast McCoy.

There is also a line on her first day where McCoy order ribs for himself and a salad for her. She took the ribs.

Parisse was fired because the powers-that-be thought she wasn't hot enough. Ridiculous. I thought she brought a lot to the show that previous ADAs didn't.

To replace her, they brought on the robot Alana de la Garza, who was the same type but a model, not an actress.

Parisse got great reviews for a couple of plays in NYC after that.

Parisse is always great onstage.

It is so weird. A straight friend at the time said, de la Garza is beautiful but not fuckable, but Parisse is fuckable.

It did turn out that de la Garza IS a decent actress. And she really does project a a steely intelligence. But that is clearly not what got her the job.

OP, because it is my User Name on several boards, I must insist on the correct "LENNIE" spelling. Thank you!

I adore Jerry Orbach so much that I could write a long essay here! I have 82 OG episodes on my TIVO, 76 of which are with Det. Lennie Briscoe (plus his "Murder, She Wrote" episodes as Harry McGraw, a spin-off character who lasted one season as "The Law and Harry McGraw").

I have the book of love notes collated by his (now late) wife Elaine (#2) from the daily ones he would leave for her before departing for the early a.m. tapings. I have the biography, "Prince of the City." I have the OBC CDs of the shows in which he originated roles.

Sam Waterson said Jerry was always ready with a joke, and that he treated everyone on the show as his peer, whatever their job level.

He is beyond brilliant as Lennie Briscoe, cynical, smart-alecky, loyal, professional, but always with an inner anguish over his estrangement from his daughter, expressed most poignantly seconds before the car accident in which Claire Kincaid is killed---"Aftershock," Season 6, Episode 23. This episode is one of the greatest of any TV show, ever.

IMO, the essence of Lennie Briscoe is seen in "Amends," Season 11, Episode 6, based on the Martha Moxley murder. His former partner, Tommy Brannigan, bent the rules, shall we say for succinctness, and regrets it bitterly. Briscoe goes to his house and Tommy asks, "Do you forgive me, Lennie?" His understanding reply? "All day long, Tommy. All day long."

From Mike Logan to Rey Curtis to Ed Green, Jerry Orbach's Det. Lennie Briscoe was the North Star, always dependably there.

RIP, Jerry.

R1, Indeed! I remember watching one episode and thinking, "Hey! I just saw him in 'Spamalot'!" (Rick Holmes.)

BTW, if anyone here has read any posts in other threads of other topics where there are mini-dialogues between Lennie and his 3 partners, I wrote them. FWIW!

I love the transparently "ripped from the headlines" writing this show adopted in its later years.

Of course, SVU perfected that art form. Every episode is either a retelling of a real event ("Chevy Chase IS a Mel Gibson ripoff!"), or a crass example of frauen moral panic ("the internet leads to RAPE, so I'd better keep my kids off of it!")

R45, what made the mothership stronger was they kept subverting formula (even though that got harder in later seasons).

Part of this was how they did the ripping from the headlines. Often a story would start and you though you recognized the headline they were ripping from---then the story would veer and it would turn out to be based on a completely different headline story.

Actually I liked Alana de la Garza a lot in that role. She was probably the most attractive ADA the show had but never seemed to trade on that. The current actress in that role is such a non-entity but then I think the entire cast is a mistake.

[quote]It did turn out that de la Garza IS a decent actress

Where is this footage, r42, and why is it being withheld from the public?

R45, The Chevy Chase episode wasn't "SVU"; it was the OG "L&O" episode "In Vino Veritas."

R46 It was more formulaic than a Lifetime movie.

1) Obnoxious people in public find a corpse, and scream.

2) Credit sequence

3) Detectives step under the yellow tape, talk to the ME about the victim, make suppositions, and go off to talk to witnesses (which always exist and are instantly found)

4) Witness talks to the fuzz while moving boxes or packing kids' lunches. They say they don't know why it happened, because the victim was so wonderful. Well, except for this one time when they were LITERAL CRIMINALS.

5) Cops set up a thin ruse to catch a suspect, and utter a cheesy one-liner when they grab him or her.

6) During the sweat-and-squeeze, cops realize they've got the wrong perp, and let this fool go.

7) The real perp turns out to be someone in plain sight, who is always arrested within hours.

8) The trial, which happens basically the next day, is a media frenzy. The defense attorney is inexplicably brilliant, and the prosecution struggles despite a mountain of evidence (the OJ Simpson Syndrome).

9) All seems lost, but the accused has an outburst in court and fucks over their own case, and they are convicted basically by their own big mouth and dumb luck. Prosecutors are really bad at their job.

10) Post-trial, there's either a shooting in the lobby or a bittersweet little chat back at the office about getting back to work.

11) Created by Dick Wolf

Hahaha, r50, for your #4! It's true! People rarely stand still when questioned by the L&O COPS! Somebody should put together a reel of a bunch---walking, packing, checking, loading, unloading, tinkering, etc.! 😄

Brilliant, r50, and completely accurate.

Lenny was blamed for Claire's death because he called her to come pick him up after he relapsed. Just after she dropped him off, she was killed in a car accident.

It's especially unrealistic because in general, fewer than half of murders in the US are ever solved. And even in those with a suspect, the evidence is rarely as rock-solid as it is on TV. Innocent people get locked up all the time, and guilty people go free all the time.

Cops can be incompetent. Witnesses can be mistaken. Prosecutors and juries can be REALLY incompetent.

[quote]Parisse was fired because the powers-that-be thought she wasn't hot enough.

She was kind of a dog.

R50 left out one of the key elements of a Law & Order episode, seasons 3 through 14, anyway. And that is the ever-clever closing of the intro scene with a joke from Lennie Briscoe. Oh, how I waited for each Lennie Line, as I called them

They've continued with these laugh lines, even without Lennie to deliver them, and I still call them Lennie Lines. I even call them Lennie Lines when an intro scene ends in one on another show.

If we could edit, I'd add Lennie Lines as 1b) in r50's diatribe.

R55, quit trying to ride on r50s coattails. It might have been ok if you just mentioned that device. But being so enthralled with yourself, adding your little pet name and then talking more about yourself just makes you cringe.

BTW, nobody cares about your thoughts about MM. He established the franchise and I am certain you didn't watch most episodes when they first came out. You have no perspective.

Watterson did a perfect job of moving that role to the next level. But MM was the foundation.

r56 I haven't said a thing in this thread about Michael Moriarity (he's "MM," right?).

Sorry, I just assumed. But everything else was accurate.

I so completely care what you think, r58. You have NO idea. None whatsoever.

R50 defines the baseline, but there were a lot of variations. Like the best lawyer segments did not have courtroom segments but instead focused on plea agreements. Or sometimes it was not a trial but a grand jury proceeding.

R50 you forgot the defense attorney being played by a multi-Tony award winning stage actor, i.e. Philip Bosco, Maria Tucci, Dennis Boutsikaris, Lorraine Toussaint, Ron Rifkin, Tovah Feldshuh, Jeffrey DeMunn, Joanna Merlin, Tom O'Rouke, and, of course, Elaine Stritch.

Reading R61, I'm reminded of what a feast :L&O was for people that appreciated great acting. All those people - and others unmentioned - were SO fucking good.

See R55 ? You can add something like r60 did without making it all about you, lol.

I would add to that list, the disciplinary committee episodes with Jack and Jamie.

I think the line was "life's a funny old dog"

R62 yes they were. L&O is a stage play

100 % wrong, r52.

1.) Lennie did not call Claire. She went to the bar hoping to hook up with Jack McCoy, but he had already departed. She saw that Lennie was drunk, so she took his arm and INSISTED ON driving him home.

2.) Claire did NOT drop Lennie off. Indeed, the final scene is of him getting out of and standing in anguish at the sight of Claire inside the wreck.

3.) Lennie was NEVER "blamed for Claire's death."

How do I know all the above? I just re-watched the episode for the umpteenth time. I recommend it.

Bravo R65... I read R52's post, rolled my eyes at its inaccuracies just moved along. This is DL, you never know when correcting another contributor will unleash the crazy.

While talking about L&O can be fun, like previous threads, I fear it will become infested with SVU fanatics.

R61, it's too bad you can't edit your post about defense attorneys... you could add George Grizzard (ok, he has just 1 Tony) and DL-fave Patti LuPone (3 Tonys).

R66 Sure. I knew I left some off, there were so so many. In fact, I learned a lot about NYC theater just from watching L&O and looking up the cast members LOL.

My favorite defense attorneys were Shambala Green (Lorraine Toussaint) and Danielle Melnick (Tovah Feldshuh). I watch The Enforcer from time to time to keep up with Lorraine Toussaint, who plays Queen Latifah's aunt. I'm hoping someday Harlan Coben will bring the TV series made from his suspense novels will return to New Jersey, and Tovah Feldshuh can play defense attorney Hester Crimstein.

R68, man, yes! Lorraine Toussaint as Shambala - marvelous performances! Beautifully dressed, loud and proud. Over the 20 years of the original L&O, wouldn't it have been fun to have her show up around season 10 or 15? She how the character had ages, maybe changed. Robinette returned a couple of times and those were interesting episodes.

Gerry Bamman, Uncle Frank from Home Alone, was good defense attorney too

I disliked the arrogant---and always defeated---character of Shambala Green. I preferred the defense lawyers played by Tovah Feldshuh, Elaine Stritch, Eric Bogosian, and Bob Dishy.

One of my favorite episodes really involving a Defense Attorney was "Humiliation," Season 6, Episode 7. Dishy's character Larry Weaver participated in an interrogation sting with Jack McCoy, thereby getting the murderer to self-reveal.

The mother lode:

R50 forgot the obligatory chase scene between young defendant and Logan/Curtis/Green/Lupo

I liked Linus Roache

I loved the openings on the original Law & Order. It would show typical New Yorkers going about their daily lives (deliveryman dropping off supplies at sunrise; husband and wife meeting outside a restaurant to go to dinner; two executives walking down the street, arguing about a proposed business deal)... Suddenly, these folks encounter/stumble over a body .... Cue the opening credits.

I'm just upset that NY Dame Lauren Bacall did not make an appearance like she did on the Sopranos.

I like the early ones when they would check in on the incredibly overworked MEs. They would remind the detectives (and viewers) that NYC was feeling with nearly 2000 murders a year in those days.

Sorry r52 I was recalling from memory. I didn't rush to the DVR so I could make some pissy little post and then use another login to pat myself on the back. Why do you do that shit?

Doesn't make a difference though. Claire was still in the wreck because of Lennie. I was just responding to the poster who said he thought her death was blamed on Lennie and I was recalling from memory that if Lenny hadn't got hammered that night, she would not have been anywhere near the crash.

My bad. R78 was meant for r65 (who is also r66) not r52, that'se

The only time I casually stumbled upon a dead body during my time living in NYC happended one fine afternoon, I was walking up the West Side Highway, checking out all the abandoned piers in midtown (there were no over-Hudson-buildings as there were further downtown by the VIllage). I saw someone who looked like he was sunbathing on the pier and someone standing over him or near him. It's probably hard to imagine for people who haven't experienced it, but these piers could extend close to an 1/8th of a mile into the Hudson because at one time cruise ships unloaded there. (Did I mention I'm a little myopic?) I walked down most of the way, only to realize when I was within about 25 yards, that it was a dead body that had been pulled out of the water and it was a policeman standing near it. If you can imagine those cartoons where the character's legs are flailing in the air as they try to walk backwards, that was me on that pier. One of the grossest things I've ever seen.

Years ago, the actress Jan Maxwell (RIP) wrote an Op-Ed for The NY Times. Here's the opening paragraph: I KILLED someone. It happened in 1994. And every three years after that — I killed again and again, whether I felt like it or not. I was paid, not well, but it was something. And, as those things go, I rather enjoyed it. I wasn’t moonlighting as an assassin, though, but as an actress on NBC’s “Law & Order.”

Link below to the entire article.

R81 witty opening

R81, She (Jan Maxwell) looks almost identical to another 4-time "L&O" actress, Laila Robins!

I thought the former was the latter's Incest Mom in the episode "Venom" Season 9, Episode 7!

Does anyone remember the perfect Patricia Clarkson playing a socialite who was running the premier prostitution ring in New York City?

Hello! Who doesn't, r84?! 😉

I have been watching Season 1 because of this thread. Season 1 is a very intelligently written and accurate portrayal of the justice system.

Where will I find seasons 1-12? Season 13 and up are on Peacock, but not the first 12.

R87

My favorite character was a recurring one -- Elizabeth Rogers, a medical examiner. She floated through the original and the spin-offs in a random scenes where she explains the victim's cause of death. The actress was forever changing her hair color -- brown, blonde, muted red, flaming red. She was "Waldo" to me --- Is Rogers going to show up in this episode? What color is her hair?

I've never seen the actress in anything else. She hasn't appeared in the L&O revival. I wish they would trot the old girl out.

Leslie Hendrix turned up on [italic]Gotham[/italic].

I saw Hendrix at HartfordStage several years ago in that Durang play, "Vanya, Sonia..." She was good, but I think miscast.

Love Rogers

The disgraced ending for Profaci saddened me. He never advanced, never got any recognition for his daily grind.

Then Profaci gave in. And was found out, because he knew too much about the mattress.

This plot line is in the movie about the Return of the Prodigal Son Mike Logan, "Exiled: A Law and Order Movie."

Does anyone remember comedian Larry Miller as a wife killer, not once, but twice!

Oh, yeah, r94! Two of the best episodes!

That bitch Dianne Wiest needed to shut up and move to Jersey or Lawn Guyland and commute like millions of others.

This thread is going to be ripped from the headlines, isn't it?

R97 not as bad as SVU

Logan: "Hey, Lennie, you see this piece a crap called 'The Data Lounge'? Man, that's some crazy gay sh...stuff right there."

Briscoe: "I don't know about YOURS, Mike, but the only thing in MY closet is a raincoat."

Curtis: "I hope to God Deborah and the girls never see the blasphemy and sin on this 'Data Lounge' place, Lennie."

Briscoe: "Every day I say, 'Thanks a helluva lot, God, for another murdered innocent.' Now THAT'S blasphemy and sin, Rey."

Green: "Lennie, a week's salary says this Data Lounge 'gay gossip site' is really run by some old hetero dude for a laugh."

Briscoe: "And this doughnut says you're not catching the card for that 'inside straight,' Ed."

I just tried a google search for the proverbial list of "Before They Were Famous, They Appeared on Law & Order". Not one list seemed complete, which is irritating. Anyone else give it a try? And really, not the "10 Most Famous" or something similar, just a list of names and episodes. Claire Danes, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Idris Elba, Julianne Margulies, Cynthia Nixon, Adam Driver, Felicity Huffman, William H Macy, Kerry Washington...

And Idris Elba's part was minor; his character was a club manager. Julianna Margulies played a naval officer in an episode with Len Cariou and Boyd Gaines. Her hair was long, parted in the middle, not yet tamed. She carried maybe five more pounds than now; not fat, but her cheeks were a bit rounder. And she played a minor character, like Elba. She was attractive, not so gorgeous as she appeared later in her career.

Boyd Gains played a defense attorney

I wonder how many episodes Len Cariou played on L&O... wasn't he Claire's law school mentor or was he her father during her last episode, Aftershock?

R100, The guest actor that most surprised me because I never recognized him, and he is one of my very favorite actors:

Sam Rockwell.

R103, Step-father.

I just saw the Sam Rockwell policeman one. I wasn’t even sure it was him, his face was more full.

R105, really? Claire's step-father? Fascinating. Thanks!

He's hot

r84...

I liked the episode with Sandy Duncan entitled Paranoia. Does anyone remember it?

R110

She was very good in that episode as the Defense Attorney. I never understood why - or heard why - TPTB didn't bring her back as a returning character as they did with other actors.

TPTB?

The powers that be

Sorry. Should have noted that.

Law & Order was great about showing diversity

I think Sandy Duncan turned up later as a judge? I could check IMDB, but I’m tired.

I checked, it was SVU she was the judge.

Guilty pleasure with Shambala Green. There was an episode where the defense retained her and Ben was talking with Adam about her impact on the trial and let out a real sassy "Ms SHAMBALA Greene" as he bobbed his head.

It goes to the earlier poster that pointed out how more realistic the early shows were. Ben was still a little liberal, but he wouldn't ignore defense tactics just because he was too PC.

Edward Hermann also had a recurring role as a defense attorney!

Edward Hermann:

R120 classy man, classy actor

r68, the series [italic]Shelter[/italic] will premiere on Amazon Prime August 18, with Mickey Bolitar attending school in New Jersey.

Thank you so much, r122. I knew this was coming sometime, but I'd forgotten about it. I'm so glad it's set in NJ. I see they're shooting in Jersey City, Newark, Sea Bright, and Montclair. I hope this means they could shoot the Myron Bolitar books locally too.

I just watched Season 1 on Amazon Prime. (It wasn't free.) I had never seen the first season before.

They knocked off at least four big news stories: Tawana Brawley/Al Sharpton, The Menendez Brothers, Bernard Goetz (they switched it up with a Cynthia Nixon playing the Bernie character), and Joel Steinberg/Hedda Nussbaum. Plus there may have been a couple others peppered in there based on local NYC scandals that I didn't pay attention to at the time due to my young age.

I won't be watching Season 2, which I also never saw. Amazon wants more than $30 for it! Perhaps the estate of Paul Sorvino pushed for a big cut of it.

Herrmann had another role late in the series as the criminal as a Madoff-type investment guy with Jill Eikenberry playing his ever-loving wife.

The theme song is better than the show.

R124, did you know that there's a sequel episode to the "Joel Steinberg/Hedda Nussbaum" episode? David Groh returns as "Joel" - he's run over by a car and dies a bit later in the episode. I won't spoil the who-done-it part, but the actress who originally played :Hedda" is also in the cast.

Oh, r126, you ridiculous contrarian, you! (Shouldn't you be buying your Back-to-School clothes?)

R127 refers to Season 15, Episode 11, "Fixed" (you're welcome, r127), of the Fontana and Green Unwatched Years.

Merci R129, you are far more knowledgeable than I. And btw, I love the Fontana & Green season. I guess Dennis Farina decided he wasn't cut-out for an extended stay on L&O and had just one season. Too bad too, I think the writers or showrunner had created a great backstory for Joe Fontana - the clothes, the wad of cash, the Chicago days, and the way Farina could become stone-faced and scary in a second - that wasn't revealed to the audience.

[quote] the clothes, the wad of cash, the Chicago days, and the way Farina could become stone-faced and scary in a second -

Farina wasn't acting. Eighteen years on the Chicago PD. Detective sergeant I believe in their major crimes unit.

R129 here. I love Dennis Farina (RIP), but I never could get I terested in the series post-Orbach.

I highly recommend the Nade-for-TV Farina movie about the Hillside Stranglers. He was excellent on the wrong side of the law, too.

Sp:

interested

Made

I like the episode where Shirley Knight killed her cheating husband.

And went free, r134!

Fun fact as we approach the 9/11 anniversary-in the summer of 2001 there was a writers strike which delayed production of most TV shows until that fall. The NBC series Ed , a Sidney Lumet series 100 Centre Street and a Richard Dreyfuss series The Education of Max Bickford were the only ones shooting on and around 9/11.

Dick Wolf had been planning to have all three of his L&O shows do a “crossover event miniseries” for the first time The storyline revolved around a chemical attack in the NYC subway system. Jesse L. Martin’s character Detective Ed Green was going to lose his father in the tragedy. Natasha Richardson had been cast as a wealthy woman who was bankrolling the attack as revenge for President Bush’s slowness in providing medicine and treatment for AIDS sufferers in Africa. But 9/11 happened, the projected October 2001 start date was cancelled and the miniseries was never made.

Now streaming on Hulu!

Praise Jesus