Law & Order Born Bad

March 11, 2024

Exquisitely cast, impeccably played and beautifully filmed, "Law & Order" is interesting, often fascinating, viewing no matter what the crime might be -- which is a good thing. Without aiming for comedy, as "L.A. Law" or "Picket Fences," some of these cases get awfully, um, imaginative.

Exquisitely cast, impeccably played and beautifully filmed, “Law & Order” is interesting, often fascinating, viewing no matter what the crime might be — which is a good thing. Without aiming for comedy, as “L.A. Law” or “Picket Fences,” some of these cases get awfully, um, imaginative.

Exhibit “A” is an attorney’s defense of 15-year-old admitted killer Chris Pollitt (Wil Horneff), claiming that the boy is “genetically disposed toward violent conduct” thanks to an extra Y chromosome. Real-life mass murderer Richard Speck, it’s pointed out, used the same defense; it was thrown out of court upon discovery that Speck had no extra chromosome.

Episode follows series’ standard format, with police tracking down culprit in first half, and district attorney taking it to court in the second half.

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Emphasis in this episode is on a host of colorful witnesses, suspects and friends of killer, a series of finely etched cameos that leaves little room for onscreen emoting from world-weary detectives Lennie Briscoe and Mike Logan (Jerry Orbach and Chris Noth, or “Brylcreem and Captain America” as Pollitt characterizes them).

The D.A.’s office gets more screen time, with Michael Moriarty and Jill Hennessy as two prosecutors and Steven Hill as their boss.

Script, by Michael S. Chernuchin and Sally Nemeth, gives plenty of space to the pros and cons of the attorney’s (Maria Tucci) last-ditch defense before coming up with surprising plea by Pollitt and inconclusive blackout ending.

Series has a knack for accurate casting, the real find here being Lily Knight as Pollitt’s pregnant and uncaring addict mother: “I left him alone for a couple of hours a day. A pervert downstairs gets hold of him — is that my fault?”

Constantine Makris’ grainy photography and Laurie Grotstein’s abrupt editing are intrinsic to the show’s quasi-documentary look.

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