Comments on: Law & Order: OK

By: David Belbin

David Belbin — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 11:15:57 +0000

L and O is all plot and bugger all characterisation making it good TV to dip into if you’re away from home but not worth recording in a world where The Shield and The Wire are on TV. I watched the first ep out of curiosity last night and thought it was efficient TV. The problem I had was with Walsh, whose mugging grin worked fine in Coronation Street but looked wholly inappropriate when he couldn’t wipe it off his face in the more serious scenes. Rather a waste of Harriet Walter, too.

By: Nitsuh

Nitsuh — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:11:51 +0000

– “surely Order is the cops and Law the prosecutors”

I’ve always been mildly bothered by this, but it made me feel better — and hopefully will make you feel better — to think about it in idiomatic terms, like, say, “long arm of the law” and “order in the court” … I don’t know about the UK, but the US definitely has that idiomatic sense of cops as “the law”

Classic-style L&O had a pretty clear Morgenthau stand-in as the DA (and haha also, later, a real-life elected official)

By: Tracer Hand

Tracer Hand — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:44:20 +0000

first the larder, then the slaw

By: Simon

Simon — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:46:37 +0000

“a British version of a US television programme!”

Britain’s Next Top Model! (and Britain’s Got Talent)

By: Mark M

Mark M — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:15:01 +0000

I lasted minutes with this because I couldn’t deal with Walsh and Bamber, but my view was it would always founder on the difference between the essentially low-profile, bureaucratic CPS and the NY County District Attorney’s office, led by an elected DA.*

Can I take the opportunity to state it has always been my belief that the title sequence of the original show (and now the British version) makes a basic mistake: surely Order is the cops and Law the prosecutors?

*The real NY DA is the 89-year-old Robert M Morgenthau, who has been in the job since 1975.