Law and Disorder

I think it’s time for Law and Order to wrap up its caseload and call it a day. This past Friday night I caught one of the newer shows, albeit a re-run, which introduced Jesse L. Martin’s latest partner, a stunningly beautiful woman named Milena Govich. She replaced Dennis Farina, who replaced the late Jerry Orbach, who was one of the best tv cops ever.

As much as I enjoy looking at Milena Govich for the 30 minutes of the “Law” portion of each week’s show, there’s a small part that’s missing, which would be the acting part. She has 2 expressions – blank, and blank with eyebrows arched.

This past Friday’s episode introduced her character, detective Nina Cassady, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where she came from or how the hell she wound up a homicide detective. There was several mentions of her being a former beauty queen, and at one point her legitimacy as a homicide detective was called into question, but I got the distinct feeling I had more qualifications than she did since I played a cop in a high school production of “Arsenic and Old Lace” many years ago.

There have been several classic characters in L&O’s sometimes illustrious run, but probably only one classic lineup;

Detective Lennie Brisco – Jerry Orbach (R.I.P.)
Detective Mike Logan – Chris Noth
Lt. Anita Van Buren – S. Epatha Merkerson
Executive Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone – Michael Moriarty
Assistant District Attorney Claire Kinkaid – Jill Hennessy

This was killer ensemble acting which has since become the domain of HBO, leaving conventional network television in it’s dust.