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Brooks Peterson
Brooks Peterson's column is published Mondays. Brooks also sits on the Caller-Times editorial board and can be contacted at petersonb@caller.com
Monday, October 30, 2000
The cause of 'Law & Order' is in disarray
All right: I've given it a chance. Nobody can say I didn't give it a chance. I tried - really tried - to keep an open mind. Wanted to give the rookie a shot.
But there are limits. Having seen two episodes of the new "Law & Order," I have one non-negotiable demand:
Brink back Adam Schiff!
Sure, nothing is forever. I know the only constant is change. But surely, amid all the flux and uncertainty, there must be a handful of certainties, of bullet-proof, brass-bound, unchanging verities that stand out like beacons in the night to guide us.
Come, come, you say: It's just another TV series. A shrewdly conceived, intelligently written, beautifully executed one, to be sure, but still . . . just another show.
To that, my judicious response is: Tough cookies for you, pal. In this world, we take our beacons where we find 'em.
Over the years since "Law & Order" has become an indispensable part of my Wednes-day evenings, I have managed to deal with any number of cast changes. When Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty) bailed out, I was badly shaken, but after a while I got used to his successor, the corner-cutting barracuda Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston). The departure of cop Mike Logan (Chris Noth) was another blow, particularly since he and his colleague, Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) had so beautifully mastered the astringent chemistry of the cop-to-cop relationship.
Still, I could handle all that. But when the awful word came down that Steven Hill, the fellow who portrayed - indeed, became - District Attorney Adam Schiff, I knew they'd gone one cast change too far.
The staff huddles involving Schiff and his assistant DAs - Stone, McCoy, Claire Kincaid and her successors - were a highlight not just of the show but of the week:
"Doesn't anybody here know how to practice the law?" "The media are going to crucify us on this." And of course, the hardy perennial, delivered in something between a snarl and a wail: "Make a deal!"
Gruff, principled, demanding, irascible, fretful and (once in a while) compassionate, Adam Schiff was one of the towering creations of commercial television. In a programming wasteland populated by twenty-somethings intent to the exclusion of all else with finding their way into the sack, by neurotic professionals and weepy co-dependents, Schiff was incandescent: a mensch in a landscape of mannequins.
They're going to take him away from us? Well, yes, my puppies: They've already done it. And that leads us directly to another huge problem: the new DA.
Understand, now, I have no problem whatever with the DA being a woman. The "Law & Order" web site makes much of the credentials of actress Dianne Wiest: an Emmy, a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award. Surely she is more than prepared to take hold of the role of (interim) DA Nora Lewin and turn it into something interesting, even arresting (no pun intended).
However, somebody - the producers? the writers? - has given her absolutely nothing to work with. In the first couple of episodes, she projected little more than a benign, Buddha-like presence. What is she about? We don't have a clue.
And this sense of ambivalence, of drift, seems even to have affected Jack McCoy: In the first episode, we see the merciless inquisitor go all googlymush over the (admittedly tragic) case of a mother who has, directly or indirectly, killed her severely handicapped child. The real McCoy would never have gone for that. I know Jack McCoy, and, Mister, you're no Jack Mcoy. Time to get your edge back, Jack.
I'm not deserting "Law & Order," you understand. It's still light years better than anything else on the tube. But could we at least negotiate a couple of guest spots for Adam Schiff until DA Lewin gets her act together?
Murphy Givens
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