‘Law and Order’ Tackles Abortion

NBC’s venerable crime procedural, “Law & Order,” has endured a fair amount of deserved criticism around here lately.  Big Hollywood’s thoughtful critiques of the show’s leftward slide and irksome predictability are, sadly, valid.  Like many L&O fans, I’ve been forced to admit that recent seasons have been quite disappointing.   The word “cancellation” has cropped up in my mind more than once.

That being said, this season has been refreshingly solid.  Aside from the atrocious “Let’s prosecute Cheney!” season premiere, each successive episode has been vintage “Law & Order.”  The most recent episode (”Dignity,” October 23) bordered on spectacular.  *Spoiler alert*

It did not begin auspiciously.  The opening sequence set the stage for yet another warmed-over episode wherein an abortionist is murdered, and the rest of the program consists of detectives trying to determine which anti-abortion nutter did the deed.  The show’s writers usually permit one character to utter a single token pro-life line (”Just because you might disagree with abortion doesn’t justify this violence!”), while the oh-so-reasonable pro-choice characters get the last word.  Having seen this template before, I almost flipped channels.  It seems as though at least one of the L&O spinoff series airs a “new” abortion-doctor-murder episode every year.  One wonders if more abortionists have been slain on this fictional television franchise over the past 20 years than in real life. (more…)

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Tags: abortion, cheney, law & order, nbc, Obama
Posted Oct 27th 2009 at 8:57 am in Politics, Television | 253318138 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/gbenson/2009/10/27/law-and-order-tackles-abortion/%27Law+and+Order%27+Tackles+Abortion2009-10-27+15%3A57%3A08Guy+Benson

dun DUN: Rene Balcer Murdered ‘Law & Order’

When “Law & Order” first hit the airwaves in September of 1990, I was an immediate fan. The concept, the ignoring of the personal lives of the lead characters, the wonderful acting and especially the endless plot twists hooked me a few seasons before the public would catch on and make the show a regular ratings hit. The first four seasons are among four of the best ever produced for dramatic television, thanks mainly to Michael Moriarty’s exceptional work as Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone, a resourceful, Robert F. Kennedy-style hard-nosed prosecutor determined to see justice done (though the whole cast was top-notch).

After 88 episodes Moriarty left, Sam Waterston (one of my favorite actors) took his place, and while the show was never quite the same, it remained regular viewing until around 2002.

The program’s eventual deterioration was a case study in the boiling frog theory. The quality of the production and acting remained, but the politics slowly shifted to the far left almost without my noticing. And it wasn’t the actual politics that first became apparent; it was the negative effect of those politics on the quality of the storytelling. (more…)

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Tags: "Memos from the Darkside", Dick Cheney, law & order, Michael Moriarty, Rene Balcer
Posted Oct 1st 2009 at 1:16 pm in Entertainment, Politics, Television | 238714180 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/10/01/dun-dun-rene-balcer-murdered-law-order/dun+DUN%3A+Rene+Balcer+Murdered+%27Law+%26+Order%272009-10-01+20%3A16%3A35John+Nolte

‘Law & Order’ Jumps the Shark

The only surprising thing about hearing that Law & Order was going to take on the Bush administration over “torture” is the realization that Law & Order is still on the air.  This car-wreck of a series has been bouncing around NBC’s schedule since the first Bush administration doing the impossible – making lawyers look even worse.  Thanks, guys.

Law & Order’s mysteries are as unpredictable as where the sun will come up tomorrow morning.  In a typical episode, when the cops arrest a gang member you can safely bet the climatic trial denouement will reveal the real killer to be either the wealthy corporate executive,  the ambitious conservative politician or the hypocritical Christian preacher.  You know, kind of like in real life. (more…)

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Tags: 9/11, bush, Conservatives, Geneva Conventions, law & order
Posted Sep 29th 2009 at 5:03 am in Entertainment, Featured Story, Politics | 236382145 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/kschlichter/2009/09/29/law-order-jumps-the-shark/%27Law+%26amp%3B+Order%27+Jumps+the+Shark2009-09-29+12%3A03%3A49Kurt+Schlichter

Crime Shows Ignore Real Crime

The US Department of Justice released a very important report in January, but it got little attention. The report found that 80 percent of crime in the US was gang related and that the vast majority of that was drug related.

Those of us who have worked with crime data have long understood this problem. For example, 50 percent of counties in the US have zero murders in any given year and another 25 percent have just one murder. Over 70 percent of murders take place in just a little over 3 percent of the counties, but even that exaggerates the picture because anyone who has seen a picture of murders in a major city know how heavily concentrated they are in specific areas within the city. (more…)

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Tags: crime, CSI, CSI NY, gang violence, law & order
Posted Mar 24th 2009 at 6:27 am in Entertainment, Media Criticism | 8681859 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jlott/2009/03/24/something-to-remember-the-next-time-that-you-watch-a-crime-show-on-tv/Crime+Shows+Ignore+Real+Crime2009-03-24+13%3A27%3A19John+Lott