Law and Order Reviews C

I have done reviews of many episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and published some more general thoughts about it here. In that post I offer a smaller number of general thoughts about the original Law and Order show (the one that went from 1990-2010). Although I do not like L&O as much as I like the SVU version, I do like it. There’s some liberal or even progressive stuff here and there and they’re good detective stories, and they’re homicide detectives- if they were narcotics, I’d probably be a lot less fond of the show.

Although I’m not sure I have done and will do this consistently, with the original Law and Order show I will make a note and maybe offer some comments when the issues that are at the core of Law and Order: SVU appear on this show.

“Sonata for Solo Organ” Season 1. See this for a plot summary.

This episode is about an INCREDIBLY wealthy man spending 1-2 million dollars on a plot to extract a kidney from an unwilling donor (who almost dies) so that his (the wealthy man’s) daughter can get a new kidney. The head of the national agency handling organ transplants demands that the prosecutors go after the wealthy man who demanded special treatment because of his wealth- instead of just the MD and nurse who did the dirty work. He says that his organization “is the one true democracy. One of the few instances where money doesn’t talk- at all.”

“The Blue Wall” Season 1. See this for a plot summary.

There are three aspects of this episode which are good politically.

1. It’s indirectly about an effort to go after white-collar crime.
2. It’s also partly about corrupt cops, including a very senior one.
3. There’s a corrupt  congressman involved. He’s an ex-cop, which makes me think he’s Republican- I have gotten the impression that some massive majority of cops are Republican.

“Asylum” Season 2. See this for a plot summary.

There are two things about the senior Assistant DA. First, although he is sort of in conflict with supporters of the homeless in this episode, he DOES say that “homelessness may be the greatest tragedy of our time.” Also, it sounds like he was a member or at least an active supporter of the ACLU, and his opinion of them changed when they defended the Nazis in Skokie, Illinois. I’m not saying he’s a progressive, but I think he might be more or less a liberal (although I don’t have a philosophical definition of liberal, A) I’d say they’re to the left of former President Bill Clinton (what he was like in office) and to the right of Sen. Elizabeth Warren and B) I go into more detail here).

“In Memory Of” Season 2. See this for a plot summary.

This episode is sort of about homophobia. The original NYPD investigators (about 30 years before the events in this episode) suspected  a gay couple in the disappearance of a young boy. Although at the very beginning of their investigation two of the main characters spend a little time pursuing that lead, after about 10 minutes of the 45 min. episode that assumption is illustrated  as nonsense. One of the detectives says that cops know that a majority of child molesters are straight. It’s a good statement (not the first part (I imagine that back then there was a ton of homophobia among cops)), although I assume it could have been better without sacrificing accuracy- it should have been said that gays are no more likely to molest kids than straight people are (i.e. if 10% of the population is gay, 10% of child molesters are gay). They identify and prosecute another suspect who’s straight and he pleads guilty at the end.