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Small Talk: Original Recipe


Lisin
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Hey guys, I changed the title of this post to "Small Talk" because this whole forum is for Law and Order Original Recipe, feel free to start episode threads, character threads or what have you. Each of the Law and Order franchises have their own forum and if you don't see one you can request it here.

If you'd rather me change this title to Law and Order Original Recipe vs. Other Versions let me know because we can do that too. Have fun!

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Hey guys, I changed the title of this post to "Small Talk" because this whole forum is for Law and Order Original Recipe, feel free to start episode threads, character threads or what have you. Each of the Law and Order franchises have their own forum and if you don't see one you can request it here.

If you'd rather me change this title to Law and Order Original Recipe vs. Other Versions let me know because we can do that too. Have fun!

I'm sorry. I was the one who created it as Law & Order: Original Recipe since there was already a show titled just "Law & Order." I just wanted everyone to see that there was one for the mothership where we could talk about the original. If I knew how to create a thread within a thread, I'd do so, for the ADAs, cops, etc. But, like I posted above, I'm still a techno turd, so I'll leave it to WendyCR72 or someone else who is tech/board savvy.

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If you click up at the very top of the page where it says Law and Order you'll get to the main page of the Law and Order forum (that's this forum, Law and Order Original Recipe) within this forum you'll see a green button on the top right that says Start Topic, that's where you can start topics like episode topics or character topics etc. Does that make sense?

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Yeah, it makes sense. I just hope it will be clear since we have like, two Law & Orders, heh.

 

I understand, but really only one is actually called Law & Order so hopefully people looking for Law & Order SVU or CI or UK see those listed under L :)

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Welcome to Previously.TV!
The Small Talk topic is for:

  • Introductions
  • Off-topic chatter
  • Having virtual tea with forum buddies

This is NOT a topic for actual show discussion. When you want to talk about the show:
  1. Figure out the nature of the topic you want to talk about
  2. Look for an existing topic that matches or fits
  3. If there is NOT an existing topic that fits, CREATE ONE!


Examples of topics that populate show forums include (but by no means are limited to):

  • Character topics
  • Episode topics
  • Season topics
  • Spoiler topics
  • Speculation topics
  • In the Media topics
  • Favourite X topics
  • ...you get the idea


Happy trails beyond Small Talk!

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Posting here because I think it's probably the most applicable thread (& I can't post in the small talk about the show thread 'cause I was the last poster there). Anyway...

1 of the accounts I follow on my Twitter is for M&Ms candy. As I think everybody knows, Oscar-nominated actor JK Simmons, who played Dr. Skoda--the psychiatrist the L&O detectives & DA's turned to after Dr. Olivet left--voices the yellow (peanut) M&M character in their commercials.

M&Ms posted this Tweet about an hour ago, in the "name" of the yellow M&M (most/all of their Tweets are posted as if they're from the commercial characters), & I just had to share--it was too cute not to:

https://twitter.com/mmschocolate/status/568931685926080512

I hope I get #JKSimmons in my #Oscars pool. -- Yellow

Edited by BW Manilowe
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Not L&O related really, more M&M stuff, but I also never realized that the red M&M's original voice actor was John Lovitz. (Another actor does the voice these days.) Yellow's original voice actor before J.K. Simmons was none other than John Goodman. And Blue M&M was voiced by Phil Hartman until his untimely death. Pretty neat voice history!

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(edited)

Seeing these in a lot of subway stations the past couple of days. Pretty cool. On another L&O note it is disappointing that once again I am visiting NYC and have not stumbled across a single dead body while doing touristy things. Also I have seen a lot of typical NYC working class people (doormen, construction workers, delivery drivers, street vendors, etc.) and not a single one was being questioned by a detective while keeping on working! It makes me think I'll never get the authentic Manhattan experience...

s-l400~2.jpg

Edited by wknt3
fix typos
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3 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

I don’t see one.

You can

  1. Go here to the Other Dramas:    https://forums.primetimer.com/forum/4355-other-dramas/
  2. And click Start Topic 

I didn’t really have much to say about it, but recently watched it free on Prime so wanted to see what other people thought of it because I’m biased towards the Original, so I was disappointed with LA.  But the out of order episodes and some of the cast didn’t help either.

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17 minutes ago, Irate Panda said:

I didn’t really have much to say about it, but recently watched it free on Prime so wanted to see what other people thought of it because I’m biased towards the Original, so I was disappointed with LA.  But the out of order episodes and some of the cast didn’t help either.

I was disappointed with LA as well, it was stupid to cancel the Mothership to go with LA, LA just felt weird, a lot of the characters just didn’t click with me - and it didn’t feel like L&O with how the Lieutenant and the DA weren’t in every episode, and the DA was more of an antagonist than a protagonist, a political hack, that was really poorly done. I also didn’t like Dekker, one of the main prosecutors, he came off as an uptight prick, he made an appearance in an SVU episode and came off as a prick there as well. And yeah the episodes airing out of order, the switch of one of the prosecutors to being a detective, it was just poorly done. They sent Connie Rubirosa to LA to try to save the show but not even she could save it, it was a pretty big mess. It’s the worst L&O show. 

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5 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

I was disappointed with LA as well, it was stupid to cancel the Mothership to go with LA, LA just felt weird, a lot of the characters just didn’t click with me - and it didn’t feel like L&O with how the Lieutenant and the DA weren’t in every episode, and the DA was more of an antagonist than a protagonist, a political hack, that was really poorly done. I also didn’t like Dekker, one of the main prosecutors, he came off as an uptight prick, he made an appearance in an SVU episode and came off as a prick there as well. And yeah the episodes airing out of order, the switch of one of the prosecutors to being a detective, it was just poorly done. They sent Connie Rubirosa to LA to try to save the show but not even she could save it, it was a pretty big mess. It’s the worst L&O show. 

Yes, I hated Dekker, but I generally don’t like that actor.  I didn’t mind the prosecutor/ police man but was confused why they showed the one partner getting killed then the last three episodes he’s alive. Was he supposed to only be on a few episodes or they just shook up the cast and he was one of the people that got cut?  I don’t understand why they were shown out of order.  I like Connie, but wished they had just made her the lead ADA, but I’m not sure if she was old enough.  Im not sure how long she would have been working long enough for that role.  I can’t believe they canceled the original for that slop! I wouldn’t have hated it so much if I didn’t feel like it pushed the original off the air and if it weren’t called Law & Order. 

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37 minutes ago, Irate Panda said:

Yes, I hated Dekker, but I generally don’t like that actor.  I didn’t mind the prosecutor/ police man but was confused why they showed the one partner getting killed then the last three episodes he’s alive. Was he supposed to only be on a few episodes or they just shook up the cast and he was one of the people that got cut?  I don’t understand why they were shown out of order.  I like Connie, but wished they had just made her the lead ADA, but I’m not sure if she was old enough.  Im not sure how long she would have been working long enough for that role.  I can’t believe they canceled the original for that slop! I wouldn’t have hated it so much if I didn’t feel like it pushed the original off the air and if it weren’t called Law & Order. 

Dekker was a grade A dick IMO. The DA turned detective, Morales, was probably the best character, I liked him, but the way they aired the episodes out of order after shaking up the cast was really stupid. And the way they made the DA an antagonistic politically obsessed hack was terrible, very unlike L&O. If they had scrapped Dekker and made Connie the lead prosecutor the show would’ve been better, but it was a mess overall. And it was oh so stupid to cancel the Mothership for LA, for some reason they thought the franchise needed something “fresh” which was a poor decision, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, L&O never should’ve been canceled after season 20. 

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When the original Law and Order was canceled the franchise lost its anchor. I never watched LA. I don't watch Organized CrimeSVU continues to this day, having had marginally higher ratings back in 2010 but (IMO) sinking slowly in quality as it became ever more of a character showcase. I thought that bright spots in the SVU cast in the last decade included Raul Esparza and Danny Pino, but I stopped watching the show years ago. I think there were ways to reinvigorate the original, I think I heard that the decision to cancel was at least partly driven by disagreements over money and production cost.

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I’m watching Law & Order: Trial by Jury on Amazon.  I don’t even really remember this show. Was there one particular reason it got canceled or it just didn’t catch on?  I don’t like it as much as the original, but like it more than LA and SVU.
 

*Wasn’t sure if this was the right place to post this question.

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1 hour ago, Irate Panda said:

I’m watching Law & Order: Trial by Jury on Amazon.  I don’t even really remember this show. Was there one particular reason it got canceled or it just didn’t catch on?  I don’t like it as much as the original, but like it more than LA and SVU.
 

*Wasn’t sure if this was the right place to post this question.

I’m not sure why TBJ didn’t succeed, but I think Jerry Orbach’s death affected it, and it was pathetic the way they never acknowledged Briscoe’s absence - they deleted a scene of the characters returning from Lennie’s funeral. Also the main characters weren’t all that likable IMO, but I kind of liked the show, I thought it was pretty good and it tied in with the other shows well - there was lots of crossover, Arthur Branch was a main character on TBJ, and they had crossover appearances from a lot of characters and crossover episodes with SVU and to a lesser extent the Mothership, and even some recurring defense attorneys and judges appeared on TBJ. It wasn’t a bad show IMO, and it might’ve succeeded if Orbach hadn’t died after only 2 episodes.

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11 minutes ago, Xeliou66 said:

I’m not sure why TBJ didn’t succeed, but I think Jerry Orbach’s death affected it, and it was pathetic the way they never acknowledged Briscoe’s absence - they deleted a scene of the characters returning from Lennie’s funeral. Also the main characters weren’t all that likable IMO, but I kind of liked the show, I thought it was pretty good and it tied in with the other shows well - there was lots of crossover, Arthur Branch was a main character on TBJ, and they had crossover appearances from a lot of characters and crossover episodes with SVU and to a lesser extent the Mothership, and even some recurring defense attorneys and judges appeared on TBJ. It wasn’t a bad show IMO, and it might’ve succeeded if Orbach hadn’t died after only 2 episodes.

I don't think Jerry Orbach, had he lived, could have saved it. The problem with Trial by Jury, was we'd never heard of these ADAs and investigators before we met them. But I think, for me anyways, I didn't like seeing the conversations between the defendants/suspects and their lawyers; or having outright crooked defense attorneys, like Deborah Farentino's in the one where we got status on Ed.

Like, maybe, I don't know, have BeBe or Amy's characters show up near the end of the season before Ed got shot, to introduce them. I dunno.

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Just now, GHScorpiosRule said:

I don't think Jerry Orbach, had he lived, could have saved it. The problem with Trial by Jury, was we'd never heard of these ADAs and investigators before we met them. But I think, for me anyways, I didn't like seeing the conversations between the defendants/suspects and their lawyers; or having outright crooked defense attorneys, like Deborah Farentino's in the one where we got status on Ed.

Like, maybe, I don't know, have BeBe or Amy's characters show up near the end of the season before Ed got shot, to introduce them. I dunno.

I didn’t think it was an issue that we had never heard of the characters before the show started - that’s how all new shows start. I think the issue was that the main cast wasn’t that likable, and Orbach’s death was a major blow to the show, and them not explaining it was stupid. I didn’t mind seeing conversations between lawyers and clients, or having an occasion corrupt lawyer, that stuff can sometimes add intrigue IMO and made the show a bit different. 

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On 8/5/2022 at 1:39 PM, Xeliou66 said:

I’m not sure why TBJ didn’t succeed, but I think Jerry Orbach’s death affected it, and it was pathetic the way they never acknowledged Briscoe’s absence - they deleted a scene of the characters returning from Lennie’s funeral. Also the main characters weren’t all that likable IMO, but I kind of liked the show, I thought it was pretty good and it tied in with the other shows well - there was lots of crossover, Arthur Branch was a main character on TBJ, and they had crossover appearances from a lot of characters and crossover episodes with SVU and to a lesser extent the Mothership, and even some recurring defense attorneys and judges appeared on TBJ. It wasn’t a bad show IMO, and it might’ve succeeded if Orbach hadn’t died after only 2 episodes.


I have heard they had that scene too, but don't recall any details. Without knowing anything about the reasoning I can't really cast any aspersions. Perhaps they simply felt that it would appear to be cashing in to bring it up on screen or they wanted to leave it up to the mothership to decide how and when to actually have Lennie transfer to the Squad Room In The Sky? Unless they recast the role there really isn't any unequivocally wrong or right choice.
 

On 8/5/2022 at 1:53 PM, GHScorpiosRule said:

I don't think Jerry Orbach, had he lived, could have saved it. The problem with Trial by Jury, was we'd never heard of these ADAs and investigators before we met them. But I think, for me anyways, I didn't like seeing the conversations between the defendants/suspects and their lawyers; or having outright crooked defense attorneys, like Deborah Farentino's in the one where we got status on Ed.

Like, maybe, I don't know, have BeBe or Amy's characters show up near the end of the season before Ed got shot, to introduce them. I dunno.

On 8/5/2022 at 1:56 PM, Xeliou66 said:

I didn’t think it was an issue that we had never heard of the characters before the show started - that’s how all new shows start. I think the issue was that the main cast wasn’t that likable, and Orbach’s death was a major blow to the show, and them not explaining it was stupid. I didn’t mind seeing conversations between lawyers and clients, or having an occasion corrupt lawyer, that stuff can sometimes add intrigue IMO and made the show a bit different. 


Personally I think the biggest problem was that it was too similar to regular Law & Order. The cast was fine. The writing was fine (not great, but not terrible either and better than many series that did get renewed.) But there really wasn't a unique angle except that we knew there would be a trial and we wouldn't see the original investigation, but the DAs squad following up. So basically it was more of the same except less compelling as they had already taken many of the possible options for outcomes off the board. I think that L&O LA suffered from much the same problem - it was the same basic concept just not as good. The spinoffs that have been successful all brought something new and unique. I'm sure Dick Wolf wishes that Law & Order was more of a CBS procedural that he could just take the concept, set it in a different city and find some decent actors - we'd probably be on the 3rd season of Law & Order: Atlanta right now...

Edited by wknt3
ducking autocorrect
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10 minutes ago, Irate Panda said:

Has anyone watched Law & Order UK?  If so, was it any good?

L&O:UK’s episodes were all remakes of Mothership episodes, usually the plots were almost the same as Mothership episodes, right down to characters names being the same, so I don’t really consider it a part of the L&O universe since it’s cases were the same as cases we’ve already seen on the Mothership. I liked some of the characters on it on the episodes I’ve seen, but I wish the cases had been original. 

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On 8/11/2022 at 10:05 AM, Irate Panda said:

Has anyone watched Law & Order UK?  If so, was it any good?

I liked it, particularly the early seasons. I do wish they had been allowed to write their own cases or deviate from the source material more, but it's still a good show. 

But I also liked Law & Order LA. I think going forward with it after canceling the original was a HUGE misstep, but the show itself wasn't terrible. Not great, but not terrible. I can't remember if Skeet Ulrich asked to be written off or was fired, but I liked he and Corey Stoll's partnership while it lasted. Alfred Molina was also great (but that's no surprise) but they should have kept him as an attorney. I think it would have been interesting to see how they would have handled a second season, and to see if the show would have found its  footing. 

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It's where I fell in love Jamie Bamber too. He was such a good actor and so cute. I really loved Alesha. I wish they had drawn from cases in the UK and if they were going to use some of the stories from the original Law & Order that they changed them up. The endings, twists or not be word for word as @Xeliou66. It could have been a really great show if they had done that. I liked Law & Order LA and Trial By Jury both had really good actors in. I love Bebe Neuwirth and will watch her in anything. I like Amy Carlson and really hoped to see Annabella Sciorra more as a defense attorney. I loved Candice Bergen as judge and of course Jamie Ross becoming a judge. I could see her becoming on. I love Alfred Molina when he's playing a good guy. I loved having Connie on Law & Order LA. They had Terrence Howard, Regina Hall and Teri Polo. I really liked both shows.

Edited by andromeda331
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On 8/7/2022 at 2:11 PM, wknt3 said:

I think that L&O LA suffered from much the same problem - it was the same basic concept just not as good. The spinoffs that have been successful all brought something new and unique. I'm sure Dick Wolf wishes that Law & Order was more of a CBS procedural that he could just take the concept, set it in a different city and find some decent actors - we'd probably be on the 3rd season of Law & Order: Atlanta right now..

I think the problem with LA was trying to change up with the bad antagonistic DA, Going the Criminal Intent route with instead of rotating detective teams the rotating prosecution teams was okay. And once you got over the reboot shock of a Deputy DA going back down to Robbery Homicide detective that also worked for me. As with Jerry Orbach, God rest his soul, not being around to provide a familiar link to the franchise, the SVU cameo episodes and Ms Rubirosa coming in after the reboot also wasn't enough. A lesson the Wolf organization learned so now the Chicago and FBI franchises are very liberal with characters visiting one another.

That the mothership was cancelled to make room for a new series should not be discounted.  I remember a similar fan reaction when the Stargate franchise canceled  Atlantis the on going show to switch to Universe instead of having them run concurrently like Star Trek TSG going into DS9 which went into Voyager. But I guess at that point Wolf and NBC saw SVU as the ratings gold.

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3 minutes ago, Raja said:

I think the problem with LA was trying to change up with the bad antagonistic DA, Going the Criminal Intent route with instead of rotating detective teams the rotating prosecution teams was okay. And once you got over the reboot shock of a Deputy DA going back down to Robbery Homicide detective that also worked for me. As with Jerry Orbach, God rest his soul, not being around to provide a familiar link to the franchise, the SVU cameo episodes and Ms Rubirosa coming in after the reboot also wasn't enough. A lesson the Wolf organization learned so now the Chicago and FBI franchises are very liberal with characters visiting one another.

That the mothership was cancelled to make room for a new series should not be discounted.  I remember a similar fan reaction when the Stargate franchise canceled  Atlantis the on going show to switch to Universe instead of having them run concurrently like Star Trek TSG going into DS9 which went into Voyager. But I guess at that point Wolf and NBC saw SVU as the ratings gold.

I agree with your points. Cancelling the Mothership was dumb and I think it provoked a backlash against LA before the show even aired, and then a lot of the characters were just not that compelling or likable. Making the DA an antagonist instead of a protagonist who was always an obstacle to the prosecutors was really stupid. The most likable and interesting character was Morales, the detective turned prosecutor turned detective again, and it was hard to swallow that he would change careers like that again. Dekker, the other lead prosecutor, was unlikable and cold. Adding in the awesome Connie was just too little, too late. Overall LA was pretty much a chaotic disaster - cancelling the Mothership for LA was just a terrible move. 

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That Molina would switch careers in a heartbeat and Connie would move to LA, take the California bar and move right into the prosecutor's office was a bit much (and this is from someone who watched Jake & the Fatman do almost the same thing!). Mothership was doing so well and to have it cancelled for LA, which never gelled, was really not good.

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2 hours ago, ML89 said:

That Molina would switch careers in a heartbeat and Connie would move to LA, take the California bar and move right into the prosecutor's office was a bit much (and this is from someone who watched Jake & the Fatman do almost the same thing!). Mothership was doing so well and to have it cancelled for LA, which never gelled, was really not good.

Yep, and Morales (Molina’s character) and Connie were the two most compelling people on the show. The other detectives and ADA’s were bland at best and unlikable at worst, Dekker really got on my nerves for some reason, and the Lieutenant was just a small recurring character and the DA was an antagonistic political hack who was recurring as well. The Mothership should never have been cancelled for LA - epically stupid decision.

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I didn't know where to put this so if it's the wrong place, mods please delete. I have been upset recently because Mothership is no longer on Paramount but scrolling through my phone I see where it's on POPTV tomorrow, Just a heads up.

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On 4/1/2023 at 5:42 PM, Xeliou66 said:

I agree with your points. Cancelling the Mothership was dumb and I think it provoked a backlash against LA before the show even aired, and then a lot of the characters were just not that compelling or likable. Making the DA an antagonist instead of a protagonist who was always an obstacle to the prosecutors was really stupid. The most likable and interesting character was Morales, the detective turned prosecutor turned detective again, and it was hard to swallow that he would change careers like that again. Dekker, the other lead prosecutor, was unlikable and cold. Adding in the awesome Connie was just too little, too late. Overall LA was pretty much a chaotic disaster - cancelling the Mothership for LA was just a terrible move. 

It really was. Season 20 was really good it could have easily gone on for a few more years. Maybe even several. I'm also disappointed in Law & Order: LA. It did have a lot of potential there and they had some really great actors but they really didn't seem to see it or care. It felt like it was thrown together instead of planned out. The characters and cases drew me into Law & Order but they didn't seem like they tried with LA.

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Well, the original also had another cast "member" that always added to its "flavor", and that was NYC. As a matter of fact, NYC seemed to have a huge presence on SVU, Criminal Intent, and even the short-lived Trial By Jury and franchise-adjacent Conviction.

I don't know why, but Los Angeles' culture/character never seemed to translate as well on L&O: Los Angeles, which mystifies me, because old episodes of Dragnet seemed to accomplish that. But it didn't work here.

Add in the series being out of order with a murdered cop "alive" again and the DA turned cop back as a DA, and the whole thing was just a poorly-planned mess, and the audience - what there was - was just probably confused, said to hell with it, and turned the show off.

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I'm glad people are talking about LA because I recently binged it.  L&O-it's in my blood.  Even though it wasn't great, I found it all very comforting.  

I see some of the things in the LA version that they finally incorporated in the reboot. Things I don't like very much that the reboot can withstand given its history but that sunk LA such as dramatic music.  Some brutal professional setbacks.  And getting too involved in cases.  

I liked all of the actors in the reboot.  In some ways, it felt more stable when they stuck with one detective duo and one DA duo but I missed some of the others.  

And then yeah, the rearrangement of the episodes so the people who were gone came back again.  I still would have liked to see what a second season would have brought but it was undoubtedly a mistake to cancel the original. 

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6 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

I don't know why, but Los Angeles' culture/character never seemed to translate as well on L&O: Los Angeles, which mystifies me, because old episodes of Dragnet seemed to accomplish that. But it didn't work here.

I think that Dragnet starting out as radio scripts had Jack Webb giving short descriptions the differences of the Los Angeles urban sprawl. With L&OLA Robbery Homicide Division detectives instead of local branch detectives you basically just had episode names where even native Angelenos might have to Google to see if it was set in the basin or the valley.

It would be like if L&O started with Criminal Intent and they went on a tour of the boroughs instead of all the action being in the 27 before they branched out.

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In re: Law & Order:  The order of the credits.

The way I relate to it and remember what's what are the sayings, "The long arm of the law" or "Johnny Law" being the police, and the Judge declares Order "Order in the court."

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