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Rating:  -
Sometimes the first season of a show isn't as good as subsequent seasons. Not in this case. The first season of the critically acclaimed drama features great acting, great writing, and timely stories. The show was not afraid to tackle sensitive topics like race relations, abortion, and AIDS. In fact, the topic matter nearly got the show cancelled after the first season. Sponsors were pulling out because of the subject matter. According to [...] Wolf's interview for this DVD set, the only person at NBC who didn't want the show cancelled was then-president of the entertainment division, the late Brandon Tartikoff. Good call, Brandon.
George Dzundza would quit the show after this season because he didn't want to move his family to New York. Too bad, he and Chris Noth had excellent chemistry. Michael Moriarty's performances can at times be overdramatic, but he did a good job as EADA Ben Stone.
The only drawback to this season is the sixth episode. The show's pilot (filmed in 1988 for CBS and rejected, bet they wish they had that one back) airs as the sixth episode. All of a sudden, Max Greevey is slimmer and has a affinity for cigars. Also, there is a completely different DA. In addition, some parts of the episode are clearly overdubbed. It isn't enough to take away a star, but it is annoying. Nevertheless, the first season of "Law & Order" is fantastic. This DVD set is a highly recommended purchase.
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I had never seen the first year of Law and Order and really enjoyed watching the episodes.
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I am a late comer to LAO but now watch it and its spin offs during the regular season when not competing with newer programs as well the marathons on TNT or USA. One can not watch all of them there are too many, but this is one of the cutting edge programs with great camera work also. Has the look and sound of classic New York police shows (gritty). The camera is generally still and wide-angled unlike the more recent TV dramas with the "in-your-face" look and hand-held movement made popular by NYPD Blue. The first season tackled social ills most programs didn't touch since Hawaii Five-O [desperately needed to be released to DVD by Paramount]. For one season, 22 episodes is impressive. Now networks call 6-8 shows a "season". True crime drama fans must have this.
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I'm new to the L&O DVD Collecting hobby.
"Law & Order: The First Year" is a must-have for your TV DVD collection. It includes people who would later appear in the incarnations of the L&O franchise: Dann Florek (who would later be a part of L&O:SVU), and S. Epatha Merkerson (who would later join the cast of L&O in Season 4).
Overall, the episodes are great and I can't wait to purchase Season 2!
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Perhaps if Law & Order had only lasted one season, I wouldn't be giving it five stars. However, part of this season's appeal is seeing how the series has both changed and stayed the same over the last 16 years. The cast has changed several times over - in fact 22 people have played the six main roles in this show during its long run, with the last original cast member, Steven Hill as DA Adam Schiff, leaving in 2000. However, with each episode focusing on the crime at hand, and largely omitting any personal details about the main characters, all of these cast changes have done little to disrupt the show's energy over its very long run.
The series pilot, "Everybody's Favorite Bagman" was actually the sixth episode aired that year. If you wonder why it looks as though it was shot in a different decade - different film quality, George Dzundza (Max Greevey) has magically lost 20 pounds, and a completely different actor (Roy Thinnes) is playing a completely different DA (Alfred Wentworth)- it is because this episode was shot as a pilot for CBS in 1988, and rejected by that network. Thus when you hear comments made that seem to be introducing the characters after you have been watching them work together for six episodes, that is actually what is going on.
The "ripped from the headlines" episodes are present even in this first season - "Kiss The Girls and Make Them Die" and "Indifference", for example, are obvious clones of actual New York City homicides. However, there are also some cases that seem to be completely original such as "Prisoner of Love" in which Frances Conroy, the rather frumpy matron of the Fisher clan in the HBO series "Six Feet Under", plays a socialite dominatrix of all things! As far as interesting guest appearances go, you'll also notice that S. Epatha Merkerson, who plays Lieutenant Anita Van Buren from season four onward, is a mother whose children have been shot in their own home in "Mushrooms". This has been one thing Law & Order has done over the show's tenure that can be quite distracting to the regular viewer - bringing back the same actors and actresses to play different defendants, lawyers, and grieving family members in different episodes.
There is also a considerable bit of moralizing by the two detectives that you don't see in subsequent seasons, with Dzundza's Max Greevey taking the conservative Catholic view of matters and Noth's Mike Logan having a more liberal take on situations.
Finally, you'll notice how much times have changed since this series first aired. In "The Reaper's Helper", which aired in 1990, AIDS and HIV still mean a swift and grim death so that D.A. Ben Stone sabotages his own case when he learns that the mercy killing defendant has the disease himself. Today, advances in treatment and greatly expanded life expectancies of HIV patients make Stone's choice appear very odd. Also, you'll notice that the atmosphere of New York City is portrayed as loosely controlled chaos in which people are virtually sitting around waiting to get mugged versus the more orderly image that the city has today since crime dropped substantially during the 90's.
I really enjoyed this DVD set, especially since TNT now has the total rights to the repeats and usually never airs an episode made before 1998, at least not in the evenings. Thus this is really the only practical means of viewing the early days of Law and Order.
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