Gimme Shelter - Part One

Forgive yourself if you didn't know which show you were watching during any part of this Law & Order "crossover event."

Let's start by clarifying that 'Gimme Shelter Part 1' is the opening episode of Law & Order Organized Crime season 3 -- and also the opening episode of a single-night 3-show Law & Order universe season premiere.

However the first 45 minutes of the thing -- concerning a broad-daylight teen murder -- actually plays like an episode of the new regular Law & Order mothership reboot, with heavy emphasis on Det. Cosgrove (Jeffrey Donovan in an excellent performance) and his incoming partner Jalen Shaw (Mehcad Brooks).

All good, but then why the heck call this OC?

The hour, which operated mostly as a set-up to 9:00 pm's SVU -- felt more like a weird backdoor pilot -- but in this case for a show that already exists!

This non-OC OC had its moments, particularly when Benson & Stabler pop up, and the interplay between Donovan and Brooks is much improved over Donovan's forced banter with Anthony Anderson last season.

The rest was a drawn-out attempt to turn what should have been a 20 minute set-up in to an hour.

And if the goal of this three-parter was to refamiliarize fans with the franchise, why on earth would Dick Wolf open with a long, gratuitous gun-battle among strangers in the Ukraine, rather than ANY scene featuring ANY established franchise character a casual fan might recognize?

Even when the action finally shifts from overseas bloodshed to a too-long NY lunch between Cosgrove and his 15-year-old daughter, viewers are left with the same question: WHO are these people?

A few might know Donovan joined the franchise last year, and it's understandable Wolf wants to showcase the Cosgrove character, but holy cow starting it off this way was terrible viewer strategy.

Elsewhere the mothership's Camryn Mannheim is still on board as the squad's steady 'Van Buren' and at about 35 minutes in the action does finally shift to Stabler's squadroom where the various teams fret over whose case it is and how it will be handled.

This last half of the hour also introduces a young CI mentored by Stabler for some patented Elliot-and-kids softness - and classic Stabler hovering over Benson's laptop so the two can share a screen with zero personal space.

By the time it wraps with a to-be-continued raid, it's clear the action is now in full swing for the SVU hour, but how Dick Wolf will ever re-assemble these pieces so they make sense when syndicated within the shows that these episodes actually belong to, is anyone's guess.

Rated this thing 9 stars based almost entirely on the acting. The writing and hack bait-and-switch within the universe rates at best a 6.

The criticism against the Law and Order franchise for glorifying the police while creating the illusion that criminals are doggedly pursued by a crack team of overachievers is alive and well with this season. And so is the pandering.

Once more, we get SuperBenson, champion of the downtrodden sex crimes victim (read: White women) against those evil men who are guilty without a trial (and in this case, "foreign"). It's the sort of ugly trope that makes us believe accusers never lie, you can "just tell" when someone is guilty, an accusation equals proof, and the police are judge and jury. SuperBenson is going to ride atop a golden stallion right after she gets a decent 'do.

Jeffrey "Derp Derp" Donovan is in full derp this episode, going toe to toe (or should we say no-chin to chin) with Stabler, who even after all these years likes to mix it up with other cops. A 15-year-old victim is involved, you see -- remember, she's White, which means they're giving 100% this time -- so it's really just a long SVU episode with some guests from the other shows. He's got a new partner whose name I didn't even bother to learn. He's a big, hulking guy with a voice like he's in a beer commercial, and of course, everybody immediately loves and respects him. Not me. You gotta do more than just show up.

The best part of this episode is Christopher Meloni, who never gives a bad performance despite some of the awful scripts he gets handed. If he wasn't in this, it would get no stars. He's helped by the cast from his own show, all of whom except the annoying ghostly computer geek are enjoyable. I wish Organized Crime had better scripts because it's really the only of these Law and Order shows worth watching anymore.

This is just the opening for a multi-part festival of disappointment, so we'll see how the others work.

What is wrong with this episode? Let me count the ways...

This was the 1st part of a 3 parter whose writing got increasingly worse. It was so bad, the scenarios so contrived, the dialogue so ridiculous, that I came here specifically to see who wrote these and if they had done any other L&O episodes. I had a good hunch they had not as no episodes have ever been written this poorly before, and I was write. I surely hope she (Gwen ___) is never allowed to write another.

And when did IMDb start this 600 character review requirement? I couldn't post the above as is because I needed to add another 132 characters. So here you go. Smh.

This is my 2nd time trying to watch this show, and I remember why I gave up after the first try. I've been a big fan of Law and Order and SVU, but this show is just ridiculous. It seems it was written by a bunch of Frat Boys who were either drunk or just plain stupid. Every character seems to be placed in a ridiculous situation, and make ridiculous decisions, compounded by their ridiculous actions. Beginning in minute one and continuing till the end. The Shaw character is the only one who seems to have a brain. And what is stabler's fascination and idolatry of his CI, who is probably the most impetuous and ridiculous of all the characters. Get a room already. And the worst part is this show is a tie-in to the season premieres of the two other Law and Order series. Urgh.