"Law and Order"

Paper Summary:

This paper takes a look at this popular series which emerged in 1990 and combined two television staples--the police drama and the courtroom drama. The writer examines why the show is so popular and what makes the characters and events so appealing to a TV audience. It also looks at what messages the show attempts to portray.

From the Paper:

"After viewing virtually all 200-some shows produced so far, an observer would find that the show has a pattern which is reflected in the two-part structure noted above--the police investigate the crime in the first half, and the district attorney prosecutes the person arrested in the second half. This pattern is occasionally given a slightly different treatment, as in one case which covered three episodes instead of one, or as in a case where an investigation was conducted into a decade-old homicide because of new evidence. Often, the two contingents come into contact with one another, with the police acting as witnesses, or with the district attorney's office asking for more evidence or a follow-up of some kind. What is most important in the show is the verisimilitude--the police plod along asking questions and do not indulge in heroics; and the district attorneys follow established legal practice and conduct trials as they would be in a real courtroom as far as possible."

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