Law & Order: The Ninth Year [DVD]

The subject line refers only to what everyone else here is complaining about--the lack of an episode guide, or, for that matter, quality packaging in this season's DVD release.I made a comment on the review written by Pemberly of North Texas. But it was long & people don't read comments here, so I'm cutting and pasting it below.Wow, when I was reading your review, I kept checking to see if I was reading the one I wrote. But I never wrote a review about this season, specifically, & I don't think I've ever reviewed L&O on Amazon because up until recently, I gave up trying to find DVD sets for the seasons I wanted.But I have expressed a nearly identical view several times to MGM-Universal, underscoring the fact that if they didn't start releasing L&O seasons, people like me would LITERALLY be dead before they could have the chance to buy!I have now purchased seasons 6 through 9, which just arrived today (the 9th, that is). This bloc is, to me, the best writing & the most imaginative story lines of the seasons up through 11. Like you, I find Elisabeth Rohm INSUFFERABLE. I did write a review somewhere around here where I said I'd seen her on some documentary about female actors & she was the only one who represented L&O in that show. She actually had the nerve to say that she thought she was the best female ADA of the entire show, the prettiest, smartest, etc. Honest to god, I had to stifle my gag reflex on hearing that.It took me a while to warm up to Angie Harmon. But she got me right in the heart with her prosecution of the rape victim who had the prison guard murdered for what he did to her. That was one of the best episodes of the entire series.There's this thing about attractive actors & how they are often chosen for their looks, rather then their talent--just like politicians. The women--Jill Hennessy, Carey Lowell & Angie Harmon were all gorgeous, which is one attribute that prejudices my opinion. But as far as I'm concerned, up until they hired that aforementioned dolt, the casting folks were batting 1000. To combine gorgeous with genius, they did the best job on television, without including Kyra Sedgwick in THE CLOSER. I love seeing women depicted like this--brains & beauty. Makes me proud to be a woman, even if I'm not as pretty as they are.But I also loved every choice of male actors, from the pilot through McCoy with Harmon. I used to think the early episodes weren't as good because they weren't as slick, but eventually I realized I was wrong about that. Careful re-watchings of seasons One through Five revealed the fabulously subtle, prescient plotlines that really set the bar for crime drama. No one, again, except the ensemble in the first six seasons of THE CLOSER, has ever come close to that bar.L&O's "evil twin" is HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREETS, of which I have all the seasons. I loved the collaborations there. When Jon Seda says, "I can't prove it, but I'm pretty sure that in a previous life, Briscoe & Munch were married," I just cracked up. Great pairings there & better interrogations than L&O because of the tag team of Andre Braugher & Kyle Secor. There simply has never been a better team than those two, with their perfect timing & mesmerizing postures.The writing on HOMICIDE, however, never rose to the level of the writing on L&O or, for that matter, THE CLOSER. Still, these three crime dramas & their personnel draw me back again & again.Of course, people don't buy DVDs to watch just once & throw away. I watch these shows over & over, just like I play my favorite music over & over, & eat the same food & hike the same mountains & adore the same kid I gave birth to 35 years ago. People think that's weird, but why? If I'm going to invest time in watching the television, I'm not going to rot my brain on "reality" shows. L&O is more reality than any of those stupid things.Oh, I wanted to mention something about delays in DVD releases. Sometimes the holdup is not the tv producers themselves. The problem is getting the rights to the music they inlcude. Even though L&O rarely stuck a Beatles' song into some pensive pondering by one of the detectives on HOMICIDE, or in another favorite & unavailable show, COLD CASE, there are always layers of copyright viewers may not notice--from singing the still-copyrighted "Happy Birthday" to including a Chopin nocturne being played by a fictional orchestra (always performed by an artist whose work is copyrighted). Making sure everyone gets a slice of the pie is job security for a lot of producer's assistants. Sometimes an artist will not cooperate, period, which means dead air or an alternative song pasted in.Leaving out an episode guide in a DVD set is criminal. I will have to fall back on my favorite source for episode guides, [...]. They list them from last to first, but they've really done yeoman's work, documenting episodes for hundreds of television shows.

A lot like season's 5 and 6, this seasons starts off with a new member to the cast and ends with one leaving. And it goes on like this for the nest three seasons. We are introduced to a new ADA named Abbie Carmichael. A Texan who recently transferred from the Narcotic's Division in DA's office, ADA Carmichael appears to be more conservative than her predecessor. The episodes are just as thought provoking as ever. Racial profiling leading to murder, challenging freedom speech, debate over embryos and probably the most memorable, the Russian mob as seen in the two part episode, Refuge. Speaking of two-parters? This season marks the third and final time, Law & Order crosses over with Homicide: Life On The Streets. This time, the 27th detectives and The ADA's investigate the murder a woman with ties to Washington. There are a lot of shady dealings in this episode mainly caused by the now defunct "Independent Counsel." But this will not be John Munch's last appearance in Law & Order or anything remotely related. Rey's departure leaves his colleges in the squad more emotional than Mike's departure, because one: Logan's short-fuse got him demoted and two: Both Van Buren and Briscoe knew Curtis longer than than they Logan, who by the way returns in a TV that was released towards the start of this season (but sadly is not included on the this DVD.) The only flaws to this product are the single-disk boxes, the lack of foreign subtitles(which do not matter to me), the lack of episode descriptions and the fact the the Homicide episode was located on the first disk when the Law & Order episode it crosses over with is on Disk 3. But do not let these trivial things get in the way. Season 9 is definitely and season worth watching over and over.

VIDEO GOOD

PERFECT !

Another season of the best of the law and order franchise. This one has a new ada starring Angie Harmon who is one smart cookie. This is also the last year for detective Ray Curtis. Lots of good stories that made the headlines back around 2000. I can’t get enough of Jerry Orbach as detective Lennie Briscoe.