So long, Lupo. Bye, Connie Rubirosa. Bye, Lt. Van Buren, Paul, Max, Fontana, Abbie Carmichael. So long super-model ADA’s, token Hispanic detective and token black lawyer. Bye, Dr. Olivet, Adam, Arthur, Serena and Nora. I’ll miss you, guest cameos Rudy Giuliani and Bill Kunstler. Arrivederci, guest creepsters Gary Busey, Chevy Chase and Jim Gaffigan. And Jack McCoy - I’ll talk to you later.
I could go on. And on and on. Law & Order had been on the air for 20 years when it was announced that it wouldn’t be returning to TV. I remember watching it while I ironed my now-16-year-old daughter’s little size 2T dresses. I remember watching it when it went through that early, edgy “shaky camera” phase (before The Blair Witch Project ruined it.). I remember when medical examiner Elizabeth Rogers didn’t have red hair.
I’ve been a pretty big fan of the show. I’ve written two blogs already about it, in 2007 and when Jack McCoy got promoted in 2008. I’m not a huge TV addict and I use the television as a backdrop to whatever else I’m doing. I liked Law & Order because it was entertaining without taking too much of your attention. I could turn it on halfway through and be just as interested as if I saw the opening scene. It was a great TV show for passive, cynical people with low expectations of excitement. It’s the anti-Glee.
Some fans of the show are ticked off that there was no build-up to a riveting final episode. Please. That would have been so out of character with a show that didn’t reveal the marital status or sexual orientation of most of the characters. Law & Order was not about sappy drama. Nobody in the department cried when Lenny walked out from his last day of work. Even the main characters who died went out pretty violently and everyone went back to work. No long battles with cancer or AIDS. Just a car crash, a shooting, and a choking on her own vomit from being kidnapped in the trunk of a car. Life goes on. Or not.
In that respect, Law & Order was a man’s show. Are there any ugly or fat women on there, other than the drug addict informants or the women who kill their own babies?
Still, even after 20 years, it was better than most of the other dramas on TV. I’m looking for a replacement. Criminal Minds requires too much concentration. I don’t do hospital or medical shows, so that eliminates Grey’s Anatomy and a bunch more. Those chauvinistic jackasses on Mad Men make me angry and the cigarette smoke is distracting. CSI is too yellow and NCIS is too dark blue. The spin-offs just don’t have the same draw for me. And the new Law & Order: LA? We’ll see. And there are always the 450+ episodes on reruns.Labels: Law and Order, Law and Order characters, TV dramas
