Law & Order: Season 4

The American television audience has always been fascinated with crime. From the safety of our living rooms we can watch the darker side of the human experience. Usually, television would focus either on the police or the lawyers but in 1990 Dick Wolf decided to combine the two genres and one of the most popular shows on television was born, Law & Order. Now usually when a series runs a few years and cast changes become necessary it is the harbinger of doom for the show. No show on television has remained as popular through so many changes in the primary cast as seen in Law & Order. Now that the forth season is on DVD we can revisit on of the transitional seasons. The first three years of Law & Order where almost completely male dominated, both in the squad room and the court room. With season four Dick Wolf chose to allow a bit of a feminine touch to the series. Dann Florek as Captain Donald Cragan who gave up command of the squad turning it over to Lieutenant Anita Van Buren, aptly played by S. Epatha Merkerson. In the District Attorney’s office Executive Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty) would get a new assistant, A.D.A. Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy). Although the gentle sex was now fully represented on the series it retained its hard hitting stories and classic New York City feel. Cast changes like this have become a feature of this series. Instead of coming across as a desperate ploy to boast ratings they just add to the realism of the show. In both the police department and the D.A.’s office people move on, get promoted or retire. Wolf concentrates on the stories instead of the individuals.

As Dick Wolf has stated as long as there are stories in the New York Daily News and New York Post there will be fresh scripts for all the Law & Order series. The ‘ripped from the headlines’ plots are usually changed just enough to avoid litigation but retaining enough of the real stories so that the audience knows exactly what news headline is being referenced. In the episode entitled ‘Apocrypha’, a young woman plants a bomb in a parking garage. Stone is not satisfied with just prosecuting her he goes after the leader of the cult that she belonged to. It is a recurring theme especially in this season to show the legal and moral responsibility not only attached to the person that performed the illegal act but also the ones that created the environment for them to do so. In ‘Born Bad’ a teenager accused of murder presents a defense that his actions where due to the presence of an extra ‘Y’ chromosome. For those that remember him, serial killer Richard Speck also had this condition and the claim was the extra chromosome resulted in excessive aggressive behavior and he was not responsible for his heinous actions. The episode ‘Golden Years’ is concerned with an elderly woman found dead of a heart attack, literally in a state of starvation. Stone and Kincaid go after her granddaughter with the legal theory that her neglect was the primary cause of the death. In the episode ‘Doubles’ a star tennis player has her wrist broken before a big match. The suspicion falls on her main rival. Now this is legally not the same as the Tonya Harding case, after all that was with ice skaters. No matter what direction the story lines go they are always imaginative and compelling television.

The two main detectives are Mike Logan (Chris Noth) and his senior partner Lenny Biscoe, played by the late Jerry Orbach. Noth is perfect as the cocky younger detective. He plays Logan as a self assured and often rash detective. He tends to act on gut instinct pushing his way into situations. Although this character would later leave the loyal Wolf would find a place for him in Law & Order: Criminal Intent after his stint on Sex and the City. For a bit of balance we have the more seasoned detective Briscoe. Orbach was a born and bred New Yorker and it shows. He is in his natural element on location in the streets of New York. He portrays Lenny as a man who knows he is in the autumn of his career. He has the contacts to get information and the experience to discover the clues. S. Epatha Merkerson does extremely well as the head of the detective squad. Her first appearance on Law & Order was as the mother of a victim and her talent was so impressive to the producers that she got this choice role. Michael Moriarty ends his run as Ben Stone in this season and goes out with flair. He has a quiet manner to his portrayal, confident and professional but still passionate for the law. Jill Hennessy starts off rather quiet here but does build emotionally as the season progresses. She is the epitome of the New York professional woman, collected under pressure having to think of unique ways to help bring the bad guys to justice.

As the flagship series in the growing Law & Order franchise this show constantly maintains the highest standards on television. The stories are not watered down as so many other legal dramas are. The topics are more adult and handled more seriously than series like LA Law. As a New Yorker I also do enjoy watching the scenes shot on the streets I know so well. There are little NYC touches like Stone and Kincaid deciding on the fate of a defendant while getting a cup of coffee at a street vendor stand. It is these little touches of reality that help to make this series the long lasting hit it is.

The DVD presentation of this season is pretty much the same as before. The video is in a nicely remastered full screen. It is clearer than any of the many reruns you might catch on cable. The color balance is better than ever with no discernable flaw. The two channel Dolby stereo covers the full audio spectrum well with a decent channel separation. For extras there are almost four dozen extended and deleted scenes. Universal wanted to make sure there was a little extra for the legion of loyal fans out there. This alone makes this a must have for those fans.

Posted 12/14/05