Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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83 of 90 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Law & Order - Always a winner!, September 30, 2005
Well, the advertisement here is a little confusing. It's listed as the 4th year, but also lists Dennis Farina as the star, and Farina didn't come aboard the series until the 15th year, after Jerry Orbach's departure from the series.
The fourth year of Law & Order brought about some major changes to the series, with the departures of Captain Cragen and Paul Robinette from the series, replaced with Lt. Anita Van Buren and Claire Kincaid, bringing the first lead female characters into the series.
There were several great episodes in this season, including one of my favorites where the detectives and lawyers were trying to track down a shooter in Buddy Holly glasses. This story was left somewhat unresolved, which led to a 2-part crossover with Special Victims Unit in its first year, and this show's 10th season. That's just one of many great stories from this season that I'm looking forward to having in my collection!
The season finale also led to the departure of Michael Moriarty from the series as Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone. The following year, his character was replaced with Sam Waterston as Jack McCoy, who has been on the show ever since.
All in all, I am anxious to add this set to my collection, and I hope you'll enjoy it too. After all, with all these reality shows flooding the airways these days, DVD sets are becoming more and more appealing. I prefer to spend my TV time watching something worthwhile like Law & Order, rather than trash like The Bachelor or Temptation Island. Do you prefer quality to trash?
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Landmark season, November 18, 2005
The fourth season of the long running original Law & Order was a landmark season in the show's history. The revolving cast door was stil spinning; this time original stars Dann Florek (Captain Cragen) and Richard Brooks (Assistant DA Robinette) have left, and the cast would now feature it's first ever female leads. Detective's Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Logan (Chris Noth) get a new Lieutenant with Anita Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson), and DA Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty) would get a new assistant in Claire Kincaid (future Crossing Jordan star Jill Hennessy). The episodes packaged in this season set continue the "ripped from the headlines" style of crimes investigated by the detectives, and then the prsecution of the offenders, and it still manages to work out very well. This would be the last season for original cast member Michael Moriarty, as he would be replaced with long time vet Sam Waterston as Jack McCoy, who is still on the show to this day. All in all, the fourth season of Law & Order saw the innovative crime drama make a landmark in it's history, and this season set is a must own for die hard fans of the show.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great cast combines with great stories to create a golden year of L&O, December 16, 2006
The fourth year of Law & Order saw the replacement of ADA Paul Robinette and Lieutenant Don Kregan with Jill Hennessy as ADA Claire Kincaid and S. Epatha Merkerson as Lieutenant Anita Van Buren. Both did an excellent job in their respective roles, and the replacements seem to have been done on the virtue of merit and making a good fit with the rest of the cast versus some of the "eye candy" casting decisions that have been made on Law & Order in recent years. The absolute worst of these was the casting of Milena Govich as Detective Nina Cassady to replace Dennis Farina in season 17, a slot that has been reserved for the "old cop" half of the old cop/young cop dynamic since the show's beginning in 1990. Don't get me started. At any rate, the chemistry between all of the cast in the fourth year clicked wonderfully, making this one of the golden years of Law & Order. Not only that, it seems the writing made a real uptick in quality.
"Profile" was one of the best episodes ever, and really gave Michael Moriarty a chance to shine as Ben Stone. After a number of neighborhood residents are murdered, the police follow the investigation to a local man who is murdering people he doesn't feel belong in his neighborhood. James Earl Jones guest stars as a black defense attorney defending a white supremacist. Most notable is the performance of a victim shot by the defendant, who gives a spot-on example of how to testify on the stand: "I remember the voice of the first white man to tell me he didn't serve my kind. I remember the voice of the doctor who told me I had a healthy baby boy. And I sure as hell remember the voice of the man who took a shotgun and shot me in the back" - this is his reply when he is asked if he can be sure that the defendant's voice is that of his assailant. The episode also wraps up very poignantly, ending on a note that serendipitously echoes the sentiment that led to the series of murders.
A very strange and ironic case was "Big Bang" in which a woman is killed when she opens a package sent to her in the mail. The bomb ordinarily may not have been big enough to kill her, but it launched her letter opener into her neck. Logan and Briscoe initially focus their investigation on her ex-husband, a highly regarded nuclear physicist, who seems to have a large motive for wanting her dead: she was purposely making their divorce as difficult and expensive as possible. It turns out that the actual murderer was after the nuclear physicist himself. He was angry at the physicist for taking credit for his work, and not knowing about the divorce, assumed this was still the physicist's place of residence. It was just an unintended benefit for the physicist that his legal and alimony troubles were put to rest by his rival. This episode was directed by Dann Florek, who played Captain Kragen during the first three seasons.
"Mayhem" departed from the traditional formula on Law & Order - one crime from start to finish, with the first half being dedicated to police work and the last half the courtroom. Instead, this is a fast-paced and unusually structured episode in which Briscoe and Logan attempt to solve five consecutive murders which take place all over the city. The saddest of these murders, to me, was murder #5. Scotty, a man resembling Roger Ebert, is picked up and held as a suspect in a murder when he refuses to be clear about where he was that evening. It turns out the man is hiding his true sexual orientation and doesn't want to admit he was visiting a male friend. When this becomes clear to the police, Logan and Briscoe go to the jail to get him released. They are too late - Scotty was stabbed by a fellow inmate wielding a sharpened toothbrush. He's dead, and the fifth and final murder of the evening.
The final episode of the season, "Old Friends", is Michael Moriarty's last episode as Ben Stone. In it, a truck hits a pedestrian and the investigation reveals the victim's link to a baby-food company in which a new partner has connections to the Russian mob. The victim's original business partner in the baby food company has seen something that definitively connects the hitman to the mobster who is on trial. When she learns the Russian mob is involved, though, she is reluctant to testify. She changes her story at trial, and says she never saw the hitman before. Stone is furious, and threatens her with felony perjury. Eventually, she accepts Stone's promise that he'll get her into witness protection. She testifies, and the mobster is found guilty of orchestrating the murder. Shortly thereafter, the witness is shot dead. Stone blames himself, since he pressured her so much into testifying. Stone tells Schiff he's resigning. They share a moment. Stone's last words to Schiff are "I'm clear as a bell." He affectionately puts his hand up around Schiff's ear and then exits. The episode's title refers both to the Russian mob's interconnections, and, of course, to Schiff and Stone.
I think besides the chemistry of the cast and the good plots, what I liked most about this particular season is that it seemed less "ripped from the headlines" than usual. There were an inordinant amount of truly original stories with odd twists and very good opportunities for the cast to shine.
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