Can’t Talk Right Now. Watching Classic Law & Order On Hulu

'It’s for the jury to see justice done!'

I’m still on festive break, reheating some mulled wine as I type these words.

The first 20 (and only, in my view) seasons of the classic TV drama Law & Order is now available for streaming on Hulu. I recently had the chance to discuss our mutual love of the series with the fabulous Leslie Gray Streeter and Lynne Streeter Childress at the Fine Beast & Cheeses podcast. Listen below.

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Back in 2020, I wrote about Law & Order’s first (and unfortunately only so far) Black ADA Paul Robinette.

“Ben Stone once said I’d have to decide if I was a lawyer who was Black or a Black man who was a lawyer. All those years I thought I was the former. All those years I was wrong.”

Paul Robinette’s (Richard Brooks) parting words to Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) in “Custody,” the 14th episode of Law & Order season six, are more than just a callback to a heated exchange from an earlier episode. They’re a declaration of purpose, a Black man rejecting a system he once faithfully served. “Custody” is revelatory, and throughout, Robinette is defiantly, unapologetically Black. He wasn’t always.

When Law & Order debuted on NBC in September 1990, Robinette was the young ADA under Executive ADA Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty). I admired Robinette’s flat-top fade.I also envied his bad-ass baritone, especially when he instructed the detectives to “pick ’em up.” The network had several popular series with predominantly Black casts: The Cosby Show, whose star would eventually appear in a real-life courtroom, A Different World, and The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, the latter of which premiered the same week as Law & Order. But Robinette was the lone Black representative in the criminal justice system. This isn’t to say that Law & Order was anything like Friends or Seinfeld. Black people existed in this New York. We were put-upon secretaries, seen-it-all cabbies, and, yes, junkies, dealers, sex workers, and scary guys on the subway. We provided the show’s urban reality.

You can read the full piece at the AV Club.

I had a less than favorable opinion about Law & Order: OG’s return in 2022.

The best Law & Order cold opens are like a minute-long, one-act play: A couple argues about an upcoming visit from in-laws; construction workers talk about striking it rich in the lottery; some kids skip school to see a movie. We’re quickly pulled into their New York stories, and then… they find the body.

Law & Order’s season 21 premiere, “The Right Thing,” abandons the classic cold open format and focuses instead on the unsympathetic victim, Henry King (Norm Lewis), an obvious Bill Cosby stand-in. There’s no horrified discovery of the body or any mystery over motive. Detectives Kevin Bernard (Anthony Anderson) and Frank Cosgrove (Jeffrey Donovan) can head straight to the obvious suspects, the 40 women who King is accused of raping.

“The Right Thing” is the series’ 457th episode and at least 456 of those were better plotted. Classic Law & Order might’ve ripped stories from the headlines but the resolutions were never pedestrian. You might’ve safely assumed that King’s killer was anyone but one of his victims or that the murder would have nothing to do with his crimes. Unfortunately, it’s just that straightforward.

OK, I’m off to watch some Law & Order. I need Lennie Briscoe’s comforting dry wit right now.