Law and Order's Success

I think I know why Law & Order has been around for so long. It started in 1990, which means there are people graduating college who can't remember a time when it wasn't on television.

If you've been watching it for a good long time, ask yourself how much you know about the personal lives of the people in the show. You know that Lenny Briscoe/Jerry Orbach was an alcoholic and was married several times. You know that Rey Curtis/Benjamin Bratt had a wife with multiple sclerosis. We found out in her very last episode that Serena Southerlyn/Elisabeth Röhm was a lesbian. That's about all I can think of. And that's why I think it is successful, because you get to watch cops and lawyers without having to sit through how their jobs impact their family life, how they feel about their co-workers, and learning that they are tormented by something and need to go to an A.A. meeting. No one ever starts having a relationship with someone else in the office, leading to a long ongoing discussion about the stresses of maintaining a work/home balance. They just catch bad guys.

Of course, I tend to catch the shows after a delay. I don't often get to see the new shows because of timing, I watch them when they get played on TNT. So if they have started screwing with their formula in the last few years I wouldn't know yet.

And this is why I don't think a woman detective will ever work on Law & Order: When they adding someone to the show who can't possibly go out and catch bad guys without spending hours every morning making sure her hair, makeup, and clothes are all perfect, it looked ridiculous. And for whatever reason it is considered to be a bold step to put a woman on a television show who doesn't look like she just stepped off a runway. Milena Govich did a fine job as Detective Nina Cassady, the part was well written, but she never looked the part.

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