Dann Florek Movies

Season six of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, gets off to a powerful (and timely) start with the episode "Birthright," about a disreputable fertility doctor who plans to rob an embryo bank for his own purposes. Several subsequent episodes likewise showcase "respectable" authority figures who are anything but: "Debt" finds the SVU unit exposing a crooked immigration attorney who is involved in a prostitution ring, and "Obscene" features two teenagers whose lives are destroyed by publicity-hungry adults. This season also offers a number of personal shakeups for several familiar characters. For starters, Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) is bluntly informed that his wife has left him and taken the children in "Doubt." And former Assistant DA Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March), presumed murdered by Colombian drug lords during the previous season, emerges from the Witness Protection Program to confront her enemies in "Ghost" -- thereby forcing Stabler and Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) to perjure themselves by claiming they were unaware that Cabot was still alive. In the season's most talked-about development, former Murder, She Wrote star Angela Lansbury is cast as the stern, cold-blooded mother of a rape suspect in "Night" -- the first episode of a two-part story which would be concluded on another branch of the Law & Order family tree, Law & Order: Trial by Jury. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Formerly appearing on a recurring basis as forensic psychologist Dr. George Huang, B.D. Wong graduates to full series regular in "Chameleon," the opening episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit's fourth season. Among the year's best episodes are "Vulnerable," guest-starring former musical comedy ingenue Jane Powell as an elderly Alzheimer's victim who is misused by both a sexual predator and her own caregiver; "Disappearing Acts," in which the SVU team runs smack against the stone wall of the Witness Protection Program while tracking down a brutal rapist; "Waste," a compelling exploration of the dark side of stem-cell research; and "Risk," wherein the team must expose the rotten apples in their own police ranks to find out who caused the cocaine-related death of a baby. As in previous seasons, many of the plotlines are driven by the unique personalities of the principal characters. In "Mercy," for example, Assistant DA Alex Cabot (Stephanie March) finds herself sympathetic to a mother who euthanized her desperately ill daughter, and in "Pandora," Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) travels all the way to Prague to crack a difficult kidnapping case. Other episodes emulate the Law & Order "ripped from today's headlines" formula. Case in point: "Appearances," which is clearly inspired by the still-unsolved murder of JonBenet Ramsey. Season four ends with "Soulless," chronicling the frustrations of using the juvenile record of a suspect to arrest him for sex crimes committed as an adult. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The second-season opener of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is the episode "Wrong Is Right," in which the efforts by SVU detective Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) to shelter his family from the sordid details of his work are shattered when his daughter Maureen (Erin Broderick) witnesses a horrific crime. Also in this episode, Michelle Hurd makes her final appearance as Detective Monique Jeffries, the partner of the deliciously cynical and paranoid Det. John Munch (Richard Belzer). Recurring character Det. Fin Tutuola (Ice-T) is elevated to regular status by becoming Munch's new partner. Two weeks later, in the episode "Honor," Stephanie March joins the cast as dedicated Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cabot, as she and the SVU team investigate a sex murder that is somehow tied in with the Taliban (and this was still during the pre-9/11 era!). Of the remaining episodes, "Closure" is a true curiosity: the concluding half of a two-part story that began in the middle of season one, this episode focuses on a rape victim who relentlessly stalks her recently released attacker. The season ends with "Scourge," the riveting story of a man driven to serial murder by a freak medical condition. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit closed out its second year on NBC as America's 25th most popular program. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Essentially a feature-length episode of NBC's long-running series Law & Order, this crime and courtroom drama marks the return of Chris Noth (Detective Mike Logan) to Manhattan's 27th precinct. For the past three years, Logan has been stuck on Staten Island, the result of an incident in which he lost his temper. Regretting his outburst, Logan yearns to return to his home station. A murdered hooker's body found floating in the harbor may provide the key to his return. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this TV sitcom, exiled black Englishman Desmond Pfeiffer (Chi McBride) arrives at Abraham Lincoln's White House where he becomes a trusted confidante of the President (Dann Florek). Desmond details all he sees in his journal, and that includes the sexually frustrated First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln (Christine Estabrook), clumsy manservant Nibblet (Max Baker), alcoholic General Ulysses S. Grant (Kelly Connell), and airhead blonde secretary Mona (Cindy Ambuehl). Farcical anachronistic parallels are drawn with the Clinton administration. After some claimed this was a slavery spoof with inherent racism, protests were aimed at the series. Filmed in L.A., it premiered October 5, 1998 on UPN. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Darlene gives birth to a premature baby and Dr. Rudman (Dann Florek) doesn't think it'll survive. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Katy Boyer stars as Sarah, a professional nurse and the grown daughter of dysfunctional couple Don and Lily Zarn (Gerald McRaney, Shelley Fabares). During a visit home, Sarah can clearly see that Lily is being abused by Don, but she cannot persuade her mother to leave her father. Subsequently, however, Lily disappears, and Don ruefully insists that his wife has finally walked out on him. But when Sarah begins enduring horrific nightmares in which her mother is brutally killed, she decides to learn the truth behind her mom's disappearance--this despite a total lack of cooperation from her family, her boyfriend and even the police. Based on fact, the made-for-TV A Nightmare Come True debuted over the CBS network on February 12, 1997. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Detective Logan (Chris Noth) is forced to reveal some painful, and long-suppressed, childhood memories when a longtime friend of his commits suicide. It is possible that the victim took his own life as the result of a chance meeting with former priest Father Joe Krolinsky (Bill Raymond). As the investigation proceeds, the ugly spectre of pedophilia looms large over the proceedings -- and over Logan's own childhood experiences. This episode was directed by Dann Florek, who also briefly reprises his old Law & Order role as police captain Don Cragen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A woman is the seemingly random victim of a letter bomb. As the detectives and the D.A.'s office pursue their investigation, it becomes painfully apparent that the killing was no accident of fate. It seems that the dead woman was the estranged wife of scientist Edward Manning (Harris Yulin), and she had driven him to distraction by delaying their divorce proceedings. This episode was directed by former Law & Order regular Dann Florek. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Another major casting change occurred during the third season of Law & Order, although not until the series had offered eight episodes. In "Prince of Darkness," an undercover police operation goes tragically awry, and Detective Phil Ceretta (Paul Sorvino) ends up seriously wounded. Though Ceretta would recover sufficiently to take up a desk job, Sorvino himself decided to leave the series for good; like George Dzundza before him, the actor felt that the series' format was too confining for his talents. Brought in as Mike Logan's (Chris Noth) new partner was Jerry Orbach as laconic veteran detective Lennie Briscoe, a recovering alcoholic with a multitude of family problems (which, in fine old Law & Order tradition, were only revealed to the audience on a "need to know" basis). At the time Orbach joined the series, there was much speculation (usually tongue-in-cheek in nature) as to how long it would be before he, too, was shot down in the line of duty, just like Logan's two previous partners, Greevey and Ceretta. As it turned out, Orbach not only outlasted Noth as Logan, but by season 13, he had been on the series longer than any other regular. A few stylistic changes marked season three. The "street action" was more or less cut to the bone, as was the background music. Also, in answer to viewer demand, the handheld camerawork became more steady and less distracting. One thing still remained constant from season one: the series' lack of regular female characters. At least Carolyn McCormick, in the recurring role of police psychologist Dr. Elizabeth Olivet, was spotlighted in the compelling episode "Helpless." Once again, Law & Order was honored with several Emmy nominations during the 1992-1993 season. This time out, the series copped the Emmy twice, for Elaine Stritch's guest-star turn in "Point of View" and for Constantine Makris' photography. Ratings remained steady, if not spectacular, but things would change dramatically during the next season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

"In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important, groups: the police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories." With this pithy but all-inclusive prologue, thus began each hour-long episode of Law & Order, American network television's longest-running police drama.

This was not the first such program to equally divide its time between the arrest and the trial; indeed, there had been a series precisely titled Arrest and Trial back in 1963. But Law & Order was easily the most popular and successful of the batch, and as the series eased gracefully past its 11th, 12th, and 13th season, it was very likely that its creator and executive producer Dick Wolf would fulfill his dream of matching and even surpassing the longevity of Gunsmoke, which lasted 20 years, setting a record as American network television's most durable dramatic series. Although Law & Order boasted a large and fluid ensemble cast, there were no real "stars" per se, save for the city of New York (a point made by scores of TV historians, notably Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh). Virtually every episode starts out with the discovery of a dead body or evidence of a violent crime. A pair of NYPD detectives arrive on the scene, begin gathering evidence and eyewitnesses at the behest of their superiors, and -- generally after a handful of frustrating dead ends and false leads -- manage to collar the principal suspect. The story then shifts to the offices of the DA, where a team of brilliant prosecuting attorneys do their best to build a case against the accused, dodging the obstructive tactics of defense lawyers all along the way. Even when the case gets to court, the story is far from over, with several twists and turns -- and usually a shocking and unexpected denouement -- awaiting both the prosecutors and the viewer.

The series made its NBC network debut Thursday, September 13, 1990, moving to its originally scheduled Tuesday-night slot October 23. The original cast included, on the side of "Law," chubby, hard-boiled veteran detective Sgt. Max Greevey (George Dzundza) and his younger, more athletic partner, Mike Logan (Chris Noth). Their supervisor was Captain Donald Cragen, played by Dann Florek. Once the detectives had completed their share of the work, the scene changed to the "Order" team of District Attorney Adam Schiff (played by Steven Hill), who appeared in all but the pilot episode, and a brace of intense, dedicated assistant DAs, the Caucasian Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty) and African-American Paul Robinette (Richard Brooks). The program's first season had several distinctions: In keeping with network's promise of delivering TV's top "action series," the scenes in which Greevey and Logan track down the perp are top-heavy with noise and violence (generally implied, but not always so), vertigo-inducing handheld camerawork and punchy background music. Also, individual scenes run a bit longer than the later short-and-sweet vignettes that would become the series' stylistic trademark. And unlike the relatively dispassionate detectives seen in later seasons, Greevey and Logan tend to become emotionally involved in their work; similarly, lawyers Stone and Robinette seem to take every legal setback personally, much more so than their successors in the series' subsequent years, although DA Schiff exhibits as much calm, stoic integrity in his first appearance as he would in his last, a decade later. Even in its earliest episodes, however, the emphasis is on the story rather than personalities: All we learn of the regulars' private lives is revealed in fragmentary fashion, and only when it bears some relevance.

Fans of the latter-day Law & Order will notice that the first season lacks the gender balance of the series' later years -- or, put more bluntly, the series was pretty much an "all boys' club." Although dozens of prominent actresses appeared in supporting roles, there were no regular female characters, a fact that tended to weaken the series' ratings in its formative seasons. Still, it would not be until the fourth season began in 1993 that any distaff characters would be added to the weekly lineup. One element of the series was established early on and would remain in place forever afterward: Most of the stories on Law & Order were "ripped from today's headlines," often with only the names changed to protect the innocent (?). In season one alone, the series offers fictionalizations of the Bernard Goetz subway shootings, the Menendez killings, the Central Park "Preppie Murder," the "Mayflower Madam," the Tawana Brawley imbroglio, and the Steinberg child-murder case. So close did the last-named episode come to the actual facts that the series' producers were compelled to include a disclaimer at the beginning of several episodes, assuring viewers that, although the story was inspired by real happenings, the script itself was otherwise purely a work of fiction. The fact that Law & Order was frequently pre-empted by network specials indicated that NBC wasn't all that sure of the series' success. By the end of the first season, however, the ratings, if not spectacular, were good enough to warrant a renewal -- while backstage intrigues assured that the series would undergo the first of its many abrupt cast changes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide