“Formerly Famous” (Season 12)
By Hank74
Lennie-10/10
Ed-10/10
Van Buren-8/10
Jack-10/10
Serena-9/10
Nora-2/10
Supporting Cast-10/10
Plot-10/10
Performance-10/10
Value-7/10
Final Grade-86/100 or an A- under the new grading system
Notes:
First off, I was excited to see my favorite judge, Robert Quinn, back on the
bench! Yes it was only for a short role in a motion hearing, but that's OK with
me! He was missed for three years. With Judge Quinn coming back, this is the
first time I know where two repeat offenders in pairs appeared simutaneously.
First, Judge Quinn and Bruce Altman's character were together in "Pursuit
of Happiness" from season 4. Then Judge Quinn and Joe Piscopo's character
were in "Ambitious" from season 9.
Let me address the Nora issue. I gave her a 2 simply for the fact her name
appears on the credits. Remember your teacher saying he/she would give you a 1
or a 2 out of 100 just for writing your name on a test? That's what I did here.
I don't know what the situation is with Dianne Wiest. Did she tape some more CI
eps, is she doing a major project, or is there a health issue? This is getting
to be a problem and to me it needs to be solved fast! Let me say that her
presence wasn't really necessary in this ep. I thought the "Order"
part went rather well. That brings to my point. Since baseball is considering
contraction, eliminating teams like the Twins and Expos, why not have L&O
do the same thing. I suggest that we get rid of the DA as one of the main 6
characters and go with the remaining 5 in the opening credits. Do something
similar to what SVU does when Ron Liebman or Jeffrey DeMunn appears
occasssionally. I suggest that either Dianne stay on in this new semi role or
have someone else do it, similar to the first episode ever when Alfred
Wentworth (Roy Thinnes) wasn't mentioned in the opening credits. I miss Adam's
little speeches and to me I don't see Nora being able to duplicate that.
As to this ep itself, I loved it! The grade may be misleading and I am a little
biased since it had Judge Quinn, but putting that aside, I loved seeing this ep
play out from start to finish. This had so many twists and turns but stayed on
track. I loved them going from one suspect to another but in a sense keeping a
focus on the husband. The way it ended made sense, although it would have been
interesting had it followed the "Coma" route where we don't know
until "Encore" came around.
When L&O does a show based on a famous celebrity, the trick to success is
to not simply xerox the real life crime like "A Losing Season" from
last year, but to add some spice and different twists which makes it different
from the actual event yet still remind us of that event. I have to see if the
real Blake story had all of these elements. The less it does, the better this
ep comes out. This also has to be the first time when L&O has done an ep on
an ongoing story. The Blake story was replaced by Condit (whom we'll see an ep
on that later on), that was in turn replaced by Sept. 11. So far they have
passed on this test. I was very impressed.
TV Guide put L&O in their special list of reviews for this week and gave it
a 3 out of 10. As Logan would say, 3 my a$$.
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