Remembering a TV cop

There have been a lot of cop shows on TV over the past 50+ years, from Dragnet to Kojak to Hill Street Blues to NYPD Blue to Law & Order. But, according to the policemen I've spoken to, none more realistically portrays the day-to-day life of the average cop than does Law & Order, whose star, Jerry Orbach, died December 29.

Orbach, who played Detective Lennie Briscoe, was a cop's TV cop in a cop's TV cop show.

If you've never seen the show, the original, in which Orbach starred, or either of its two spinoffs, Law & Order CI and Law & Order SVU, you are, for my money, missing one of the best dramas on TV and the best cop show ever.

I became a fan about five or six years ago when I stumbled across the version Orbach was in. That particular episode dealt with an abortion doctor who was gunned down in his home by a sniper who fired from outside.

Sound familiar?

No wonder. Such an incident really happened in the Buffalo area. And, one thing Law & Order does, on occasion, is take real-life crimes and transplant them to New York City, using a fictional account and characters to tell the story, i.e., "ripped from the headlines" while changing the names in addition to the locale, etc. But, it does so without sensationalizing them. The show did the same thing with the north Georgia crematory scandal. Law & Order CI moved the locale to New York and fictional characters were used to tell the story of a similar incident there.

But what makes Law & Order, all three of the shows, different from other cop shows is the way the story is presented.

Looking for wild chases? You won't find them. Looking for shootouts with the bad guys? Won't find them. It's just the legwork, the paperwork, the interrogations, etc. that most police detectives endure everyday. That, of course, is not the case with most cop shows.

And, Orbach, except for the corny wisecracks the scripts forced him to recite once or twice an episode, portrayed his character to the hilt. I became a fan of his late in his career only after getting hooked on Law & Order. I did not even know until after his death that he was a song-and-dance man on Broadway for many years, even picked up a Tony Award or two.

The show has been on since the early 1990s and new episodes dot the NBC prime time landscape with a fourth spinoff, which Orbach was to star in, scheduled to debut sometime in the next few weeks. Law & Order is a staple of two cable networks, TNT and USA. Morning, afternoon and night - tune in and you're apt to see Law & Order. Look for Jerry Orbach - he's the droopy faced, slightly hunched over, wisecracking, by-the-book one... the veteran who keeps his partner and others in the precinct in line.

A cop's TV cop on a cop's TV cop show.

I once asked GBI agent Jim Hallman of Gainesville, during an interview on the occasion of his retirement after a long career in law enforcement, what was his favorite TV cop show.

"Law & Order", he said, with hesitation.

"Why?," I asked.

"Because its the most realistic," he replied.

"NYPD Blue?", I queried.

"Nothing but a police soap opera," Hallman said.

Rest in peace Jerry Orbach.


Ken Stanford is the longtime News Director at WDUN NEWS TALK 550, AM 1240 SPORTS RADIO THE TICKET and MAJIC 1029, and is Editor of accessnorthga.com.