Actually started watching 'Law and Order' from the later episodes of the Briscoe and Green period. Seeing the whole Briscoe and Green period overtime, it came to me that some of the earlier episodes were among the best from it. The previous episodes were mostly of an incredibly high standard and most of the season's episodes in general ranged between very good and fantastic, despite a few exceptions that were still not bad at all.
Sadly one of those exceptions is "Surrender Dorothy". Rewatched it very recently to see whether my initial reactions of it on first watch being a decent episode held up or got better or worse. "Surrender Dorothy" is one of the few Season 10 episodes where my view of it changed completely on rewatch and the only one actually to go down in my estimations. One of my least favourites from Season 10 along with "Merger" and "Panic", with the one slight difference being that those two never did it for me.
There are good things here. Production values are slick and professional, not ever resorting to cheap or untested gimmicks or anything. The music is haunting in the right places and isn't constant or too loud, and there are times where the direction does give the drama urgency and breathing space in the latter stages.
Can't fault the performances from the regulars, Jerry Orbach and Jesse L Martin work so well together (my personal favourite police partnership for the show), and Jon Cypher does creepy and enigmatic so well to the extent that one can see how people are drawn to him but strongly roots for his guilt. The episode starts off very intriguingly.
Really do wish however that that intrigue was more consistent. The case was nothing special really and felt dull, did have a strong feeling regarding Cypher's character guilt with the character being as obvious as he was but the story did feel underdeveloped and didn't do enough with the argument. It did lack tension, even in the second half, and surprises were few. If Cypher's character was more fleshed out and had more subtlety, if the different points of view were more balanced and gone into depth more and if feelings for what the outcome should have been weren't so strong, that would have made things less predictable.
Did feel that the final quarter did try to cram in too much and rush through the information, especially in the rushed and underdeveloped ending. The script lacks the usual tautness and there has been a lot more punch and intensity in the scripting in other episodes.
Overall, a bit indifferent here. 5/10.
