Dissonance

'Law and Order' was a great show in its prime and there has always been a preference for the earlier seasons over the more commonly aired late-Briscoe and post-Briscoe episodes. Not only love the show for its compelling cases and terrific writing and acting in the Briscoe and pre-Briscoe years. But also its admirable tackling of difficult subjects and themes (the 'Law and Order' franchise at its best was very good at that), their cases often based upon real-life ones and the moral dilemmas raised.

The music-related setting is nothing innovative for 'Law and Order' and was another setting re-visited quite a number of times in the franchise since. That didn't bother me massively though, being a classical musician myself and being raised on and around it for as long as can be remembered. "Dissonance" has a pretty familiar story and the execution is pretty familiar too. It is a pretty good episode still and there are worse episodes of 'Law and Order', but this is not an example of the show in its prime and instead when it was starting to run out of new ideas.

"Dissonance" has very little that is surprising or original, due to having plot tropes that have been seen before quite a number of times, and the first half in particular is pretty routine and not that interesting outside of Jerry Orbach and Jesse L. Martin. How it was all going to map out was never really in question, the twist not being much of one at all and far from a shock.

Part of me does agree that Lewin never really ignited as a character. She has some nice moments here and Dianne Wiest does well with what she's given, but the character has always been rather underwritten and never really developed that much. The support character writing for my tastes was too one-dimensional and excessively negative, not all musicians are like how they're portrayed here.

However, there are a fair number of things that are done well. The production values are slick and sharp, without being too dark or overly-bright. The music is not over-emphasised or overused. The script is tightly written and doesn't ever come over as too confused or over-wordy (despite the show in general being quite dialogue heavy) . Nor does it come over as juvenile or glossed over, with a little more meat to what is addressed it would have been even better. The exchanges between Lewin and Wright are indeed deliciously juicy.

Although the story is nothing earth shattering or exceptional, the legal scenes do have moments of tension. All the performances are fine, lead and supporting.

Overall, another one of those decent if nothing special episodes. 6/10.

There was a time when L&O plots were "ripped from the headlines" of the front page. By this point and for the rest of the long run of the series, they were much more often than not ripped from the society pages. No longer are we seeing detectives furtively chasing drug dealers down dingy alleys. From now on it's mostly captains of industry, masters of the universe and, in this case, orchestra conductors.

It's not a bad episode, but I can't help feeling I've seen the same plot before, or maybe a similar plot later in the series. As usual, professional musicians are shown as incredibly vain, venal and occasionally spiteful creatures about whom I can't really generate interest, much less sympathy.

Then there's Dianne Weist. I have no idea why she agreed to do this series. She's introduced two episodes ago as an "interim" DA, meaning the Lewin character wasn't long for L&O. And Weist, who has delivered fine performances on the big screen, seems a bit bored, as if taking the role were a favor to Dick Wolf. Her character has none of the irascible charm of Steven Hill's, nor the folksy bluster of Fred Thompson's. Maybe because the writers knew Weist was just pinch-hitting, they didn't exert themselves on her character's behalf.

I was not sure about Nora Lewin taking over as DA for Adam Schiff. I thought this could be a softening of the DA's office and their would be a lot of confrontations between her and McCoy which would lead to more sub plots about their working relationship and take away from the cases. I guess she proved to be better than I expected, I still like Adam best but Dianne has done a pretty good job and not tried to come in steamrolling like Gloria Steinem on steroids. The confrontation between Lewin (D.A.) and Wright (Judge) was great, I have wanted this POS to get it in the ass for a long time ever since his unbelievably irresponsible rulings in season 8 "Damaged". He never did another L&O except 1 Trial by Jury which I don't count so it was basically like Nora got him removed from the bench. Good Riddance to one of the most cancerous judges on the series.

This Law And Order episode concerns the murder of a young female violinist in the symphony orchesta conducted by Ronald Gutman who is Toscanini like in his tastes and passions. Guttma;s wife Jenny Maxwell is also a member of the orchestra which makes it all cozy.

Guttman's affairs have been rather public at least in the orchestra community. But we never had a homicide ove one of them.

Guttman is ably defended by George Grizzard and there is some extralegal strategy cooked up to tilt the scales of justice his way.

I'm not sure the financial shenanigans would stand up to reality though.. You'll have to see the episode to know what I'm talking about.