“Law and Order” has dominated the TV landscape ever since launching in 1990. The series, set in New York City and following cops and detectives working grisly, disturbing cases week after week, has inspired numerous spin-offs during its 30-plus years on the air. The general view on “Law and Order” has shifted over the decades, but plenty of people still tune in to catch the latest case.
If you’re interested in watching the gold standard of cop dramas, it’s probably best to keep up with the current version of the show because some of the earlier episodes are absolutely unwatchable. “Law and Order” has frequently been prone to problematic presentations of characters and storylines, but those issues really shine through in the early seasons.
In Season 2, Episode 1, “Confession,” Detective Mike Logan (Chris Noth) gets a suspect to confess by threatening him at gunpoint, an especially egregious example of justifying anything cops do on the job. Other times our supposed heroes seem to have problems relating to the victims. In Season 2’s “Out of Control” — an episode, incidentally, where an African-American character named Fermi is played by a white woman – several officers talk dismissively about a rape victim. That’s a trend that gets worse in Season 4’s “Discord.” The show also has an uneasy relationship with race, as exemplified by episodes like Season 6’s “Trophy.” There’s really no issue that early “Law and Order” won’t present in a troubling way, so it might be best to forget it entirely.