Everyone who has ever owned a television would undoubtedly recognize the iconic “DUN DUN” of the Law & Order franchise. With the longevity of the original series, several long-running spin-offs, and an apparent syndication contract with the devil, I’d venture to guess that you can’t turn on the TV without at least one channel running…
Pam Wechsler spent several years as a criminal prosecutor in Boston, MA before moving to Los Angeles to write for television—most notably Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and Law & Order: Trial by Jury. Now, Ms. Wechsler is trying her hand at crime fiction with her first novel, Mission Hill. She was…
As a former mental health chief at New York City’s Rikers Island, I watch TV crime dramas with special interest, especially when the action switches to Rikers. No crime series includes the notorious lockup more often than the enduring Law & Order. While this popular TV series makes for satisfying entertainment, and even better PR…
From Robert Downey Jr.’s period, pulp-action hero to Benedict Cumberbatch’s autism-spectrum, modern genius to Hugh Laurie’s narcissistic Dr. House to Vincent D’Onofrio’s troubled Detective Robert Goren, we’ve seen nearly every conceivable iteration of the Great Detective. What may surprise you, however, is that the first serious, novel-length Holmes pastiche would also later start the killer…
Are you a super fan of Law & Order? All 456 episodes and 20 years of it? Well one super fan took his obsession to new—and more academic—heights. Jeff Thompson's project started out when he simply started watching (read: binge-watch) old episodes of Law & Order on Netflix. However, the hobby soon became a project…
A detective with a past that includes mental instability and difficulty connecting emotionally, a professional woman assigned as his partner/handler, and a female arch-nemesis. It sounds like the recipe for Elementary, but I’m referring instead to Law & Order: Criminal Intent. If you’re a fan of Elementary and pining for more, I highly recommend binging…
I cannot stand to watch Sherlock Holmes on Elementary. He’s a humorless snot with no redeeming value and I’m amazed that this show has found an audience. Maybe they’re tuning in for Lucy Liu’s Jane Watson, who is the best part of the show. I certainly hope so. I’ve read or watched just about every…
Sometimes, less is more. But sometimes, there’s delirious pleasure in heaping more upon more. Like, for example, when you take a perfectly wonderful candy bar—a symphony itself of caramel, nougat, peanuts, and chocolate—and freeze it onto a stick, then dip the thing in batter and deep-fry it. On paper, even to a lover of sweets,…
I’ve been a fan of good TV crime drama for decades – whether the classic, English Inspector Morse, the brutally realistic Law & Order franchise, or the sassy-scientific CSI stable. What I didn’t realise until very recently, is that, whether I knew it or not, I was actually doing…
