A trend is starting with the Law and Order reboot. Last week's episode wasn't as awful as the ones that came before it, and this one wasn't as awful as last week's.
Derp and Lurch still derp and lurch, but the script gives them more to do than that. Who'da thunk that everything starts with the quality of the script? Not Hollywood. Actors get so much of the money and attention, but when they can't polish up a fertilizer script, you know it's the writers who are at least as important to the task.
Now, that's not to say all of this was great. Far from it. The plots are still clumsy and seem assembled from bits and pieces of other episodes, with no suspense or cat-and-mouse. For instance, for a few seasons, the whole franchise routinely visited the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. This one does, too, which isn't to say they're passe -- far from it -- but that if you watched Law and Order regularly, you'll see recycling of scenes and characters. And the ending here was especially unsatisfactory, mean to be ironic but coming across more as pat (like, how many times can they work the title "Chain of Command" into the dialogue for those that I guess miss its importance to the story?).
It's also true the acting all around is still far less natural -- more like soap opera level with way too much hammy overreaction -- but with a script that does more than be minimalist, there are some moments for the characters to actually do and say something interesting. The Garden Ghome seems to have taken his Ritalin and is almost tolerable now, but AOC gets better with each week. Again, in the old version, she could have fit in, especially if they gave her a real script to work with. There were even some moments of consultation with Sam Waterston that felt more in the ballpark of the old show rather than the perfunctory cameos of the previous episodes.
Yes, the music is still sappy and intrusive, but that seemed to start with the abysmal SVU of the past 10 or so years. That show just gets worse and worse. For what it has devolved into, they should just show 35 minutes of its star in very diffused light and with a breeze to waft her wilted hair while she pontificates to heavy-handed music and chants of "Olivia Benson, we love you!" about how men are evil. The direction, likewise, has gotten less and less smart, as though no one trusts the audience to have any intelligence anymore and everything must be slowed down and telegraphed (and often more than once).
