Law & Order: Trial by Jury: The Complete Series

Review By: Michael Dance
MichaelDance@TheCinemaSource.com

Law & Order: Trial by Jury was an entertaining show that wasn't given time to grow. The third spin-off of the long-running Law & Order franchise (after Special Victims Unit and Criminal Intent), it debuted on NBC midseason, got pretty good ratings, and was yanked off the air at the end of the season. It was a curious decision for the hit-starved NBC to cancel the show, given that it got better ratings, over 11 million average viewers, than plenty of the network's established shows. (Insider dirt suggests that one reason was that the show's viewer average was too old, and therefore less susceptible to advertising.)

And so Law & Order fans are left consoling themselves with the fact that the series' eleven episodes are now out on DVD. I myself am a L&O fan; the exquisite ability of the show to help one procrastinate schoolwork is unrivaled among other syndicate-friendly series. (If only I was in a position to watch the show for a job; then I would feel like I was accomplishing something. Hmm.) So how does this new installment stack up?

Shaky but promising. The conceit of the show, the thing that made it different from its sister shows, is that it focused on all aspects of each trial. That means not just the assistant D.A.'s case, but also on the defense, and in some cases, the jury. It's an interesting universal perspective that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. One would think that being able to see inside the defense's case fixes my main problem with the Law & Order franchise as a whole, which is that every single defense attorney is cartoonishly sleazy. But while seeing the defense's strategy is often entertaining (particularly "Vigilante", with Lorraine Bracco as a trashy lawyer) it hardly ever uses it as an opportunity to flesh the characters out. Only in a few episodes, including the superior "Truth or Consequences", do we see many shades of gray.

The cast also feels like it needs a little smoothing over, which again would probably have come with time. Jerry Orbach was originally set to reprise his role (although in a lighter capacity) as Lennie Briscoe, until his untimely death after filming just two episodes. Filling his place was Scott Cohen, who proved to actually be a strong addition to the cast as likable but contentious detective Chris Ravell. Bebe Neuwirth, likewise, is excellent in the lead role of A.D.A. Tracey Kibre, although her character can be less than likable at times.

Unfortunately, Kibre's assistant A.D.A., played by