Jack McCoy is back, baby!
Last night, something happened that I thought I would only ever dream of. Original Law & Order returned to our golden screen. Season 21 of Law & Order is here everyone.
You can find all my thoughts on the new episode in my Instagram stories until later tonight. Long story short, I loved it!! Did there need to be more Sam Waterston? OF COURSE. But was I still into it? Very much yes! I might be going overboard and I definitely went in with low expectations, but it’s always just so exciting (and shocking?) when people don’t truly fuck up a TV show…
If you have read Murder Book, you know I have spent the last 31 years of my life praising this show. It’s truly my religion. My safe space. It’s what centers me. If you haven’t read Murder Book, well you can buy it now and have a good laugh, but also, you can read along here as I break down all the reasons I love this show more than life itself. Jk, but really.
Law & Order premiered September 13, 1990, while I was residing in my mother’s womb. Here’s one my favorite pages I drew in Murder Book from the chapter titled “Blame the Mother:”
And I do believe I was watching the show from birth on. My earliest memories of Law & Order are just the sounds, which today are of course, literally iconic. From the theme song to the DUN-DUN (which has been my text tone since 2012), these musical notes are ingrained in American culture. How many times has someone shared with you this tiktok? People still send it to me at least once a month, like I don’t know. And I’m like, oh I know. But I’m not mad. It’s funny every time.
I like to think that Law & Order was always on when I was a kid, but we know that’s not true. Before we could have Law & Order marathons, we first needed to just have Law & Order, new every week, blowing everyone’s minds. Here’s another (1/2) page from my book where my mother recounts her story of when she first saw the show.
Let it be known I made a grave error when fact checking my book. It wasn’t Gerry Wesolek, the husband, it was Jeri (spelling!?) the wife. I am so embarrassed and would like to take the time to apologize to the Wesolek family.
At some point in our family, Law & Order shifted from being “the thing mom watched” to a familial identity. I assume this happened once the marathons became available.
All this makes me wonder two things:
What was the critical reception of Law & Order at the beginning?
When did it become a daily marathon?
Would you believe that The Hollywood Reporter was like… low key not a fan? Their first review came from Miles Beller, who found the pilot to be, “television by the numbers, connecting the dots to make the picture” and something that “only works fitfully” despite the powerhouse cast.
I know pilots are never that great but, could this man have been more wrong? Sure, Sam Waterston and Jerry Orbach weren’t in season one, but… still… the public wants television by numbers. That is what the actual success of Law & Order is (cue: John Mulaney’s famous bit). It’s why I love it. Entering an episode of Law & Order is to be safe again. You know your expectations, you know your goals, and you know the players. They say you can never go home again but my god, can you return to Jack McCoy. He will never let you down (unless of course, your name is Claire Kincaid and then, he will let you down and will live in regret for the rest of his life).
I’m happy to say that though The Hollywood Reporter was way off base, The New York Times could spot a gem when they saw one. John O’Connor wrote that the first four episodes indicated that the show “could climb quickly to the top echelons of the genre, right up there with Crime Story and Hill Street Blues."
And that it did. Law & Order went on for 20 seasons, before returning last night, not to mention it’s spinoff SVU that is currently the longest running live-action scripted American primetime series. (Personally though, I could use more Criminal Intent!!!)
To answer my second question, Wikipedia tells me that reruns of the show began on A&E in 1995, but then the contract got so expensive they couldn’t afford it. Today the marathons can be found on Sundance TV, TNT, WE TV, Court TV and more.
Despite the sheer ubiquity of Law & Order, I still cannot turn away from it. I have seen every episode at least three times, but it doesn’t matter. It’s always exciting. Or is it more of a relief to find it? Like seeing your best friend on the subway.
I used to miss classes in college because I found out there was a marathon on and I just didn’t have the will to walk away. It makes no sense. You can access the show truly whenever. But somehow the appeal of the unending marathon, with commercial breaks, is terribly enticing. It’s like succumbing to the Earth. Saying yes to desire. Embracing a paralyzed state of being. What other analogy can I think of??? Quite frankly, I believe it’s the definition of being an American!!!
This is also the definition of being American but I don’t feel like getting into it beyond a venn diagram:
Law & Order has been with me throughout so many phases of my life. In college I somehow acquired the job of unloading every single Law & Order script (from every franchise) off the trucks from USA and into our special collections library. When I was offered the job I was obviously thrilled. It felt like no one else at school was quite as qualified as me. The job began with me physically taking the boxes upon boxes of scripts off a truck (they were not organized), lugging them up to special collections, sorting through them, cataloging, organizing, all that jazz. At a certain point it did become quite mundane, being a cog in the machine, sipping on ice coffees, having to be quite. But then one day I opened one of those legal boxes to find not a regular old script in a regular old binder but, a leather-bound script stuffed with notes from the actual writers and production staff. I was in awe. I read through quickly, finding little morsels of information like Chris Noth’s address from 1991, which take was good for scene five, which actress was making more money that day. It was a gold mine. While working this job I had felt a frustration that I was doing it for nothing. Was anyone going to be even told that all the Law & Order scripts were just sitting at our library? Would anyone really come to check these out when they had this little thing called the internet? Was all my work for nothing? The moment I found this script, it all became worth it. After staring at it for about 45 minutes I decided, I had to steal it. This beautiful creature didn’t deserve to be tucked away in a dark corner of the library, it deserved to live. To live with me of course, no one else. Even though you were checked coming in and out of special collections, I decided if I walked out with enough confidence, no one would question me. And I was right. And it didn’t matter anyone, I was the one carrying them off the truck, I was the one marking them in, if I didn’t mark it in, who would ever know it was missing? So I slid it into my Jansport backpack and walked my ass out of there. That night my roommates and I sat around the kitchen table to do a table read. We all picked our parts and did the best mediocre drunken acting of our lives. It did help that we happen to have prop guns from a short film production. It’s one of my favorite memories. I still have the script with me, it sits with all my other favorite works from Nora Ephron, Anne Rule and Roz Chast.
I wrote (drew?) in my book that watching this show is like wrapping yourself in a warm, murderous blanket, and it is still true. It makes me feel cozy. It makes me feel like I’m with my mom. When my gal Kelsey and I lived together for nearly six years, we instituted in our household what we called Law & Order Fridays. Which just meant that instead of staring at our laptops in our rooms like we did every other day of the week, on Fridays we would sit with our laptops in the living room while Law & Order was on. It was terribly soothing. Feel free to adapt this into your own routine.
I still draw to this show nearly every day. I did yesterday, I will today, and lord knows I will next week. When I started to work on Murder Book, I also began purchasing all of the Law & Order seasons on DVD. First my boyfriend bought me one season and then the pandemic hit and I just couldn’t stop buying box set after box set. It absolutely would have been cheaper to buy the entire 20 seasons at once, but then that would take the fun out of it all.
A couple months ago they were shooting the Christopher Meloni spin-off, Law & Order: Organized Crime (the only bad version of L&O in my opinion), in my neighborhood. I was, to no one’s surprise, insanely excited. I woke up at 7 AM to just walk by the crew, again… and again… hoping someone would finally talk to me. Eventually one of the grip guys wanted to say hi to Margie. He gave her a bagel and I was thinking woah that’s a lot of bread, but I was so eager to talk to them I didn’t give a fuck what they fed Margie. The guy and I started chatting and he tells me he worked on the original season, which found me flabbergasted. So I told him this.
Whether or not this was a healthy habit has never been any of my concern. Because I love the show so dang much. I can’t even begin to list the reasons why, but here’s a few:
Here’s a clip from a recent set I did in Williamsport, PA!
And of course, a list I made a few weeks ago.
Also, I feel weird writing my newsletter while a war is breaking out in Ukraine. It’s terrifying and heartbreaking. Hope everyone is taking care of themselves as best they can <3
Thank you for reading! New posts every Friday!
ICYMI: Jena Friedman & I are hosting a virtual event on 3/2!
Podcast on repeat: Chris Lilley’s J’amiezing
Song stuck in my head: Uncle Kracker’s Follow Me
Obsessed with: All of Brandon Bird’s Law & Order art
Order prints and more on Etsy!
Have you read Murder Book? I’d love to hear from you!