If you had a chance to read Friday's TN&V, you already know that "Law & Order" [the original, not one of the serial iterations] aired a program last Wednesday titled, "Age of Innocence." Frankly, I haven't a clue how that relates to what followed: a sordid, cheap-shot assault on the family of Terri Schindler-Schiavo (called the LeMars), her supporters, conservative Christians, the pro-life movement, and the viewer's intelligence. (Of course, there is the standard preface that the show is "fiction" and does "not depict any actual person or event," but everyone who watches the program knows this is just to give them legal cover.)

 

Now, if the director were responding to these charges, my guess is he would offer a couple of consideration that he would argue off-sets the crux of the show: the LeMars, who are clearly the Schindlers, successfully conspire to murder Terri's (Karen's)  estranged husband (Robert Barrows), egged on by arguably the world's sleaziest, hypocritical minister who looks an awful lot like what you would image central casting's vision of Jerry Falwell would be.

 

For example, I must confess I was startled by a part of the opening scene. As the husband looks out the window at the angry crowd of protesters, he is told it's time.

 

Weepily, Barrows goes into the next room, kisses Karen, and tells her, "Sweetheart, this is what I promised you." (He has won the right to remove her feeding tube later that day.) "Remember?" To my amazement, she looks right at him and appears to try to speak.

 

"I love you," he says. Karen continues to look at him!

 

Ninety seconds later (after having walked past an ugly, hysterical mob), Barrows starts his car, drives a few yards, and a pipe bomb is remotely detonated with enough impact (were this realistic) to have killed dozens of other people, if not more.

 

The other sop is a quick throwaway line when a woman is asked if she recognizes the picture of one of the numerous pro-life "whackos" in the program. Yes, he handed out fliers. She adds, "He's pro-life which sorta bothers me 'cause I'm pro-choice." So at least an ever-so-brief suggestion that the opposition to Terri's starvation death included even "pro-choicers."

 

Alas, that's about it. From that point on, the same drumbeat is pounded on the helpless viewer: this people are "pro-life"??!!

 

In response to a question by detectives--has anyone shown up to threaten Barrows' personally--Barrows' girlfriend responds, "Besides her parents?" Not only will the son, Steven, detonate a car bomb that could have killed everybody in sight, he and his parents are such putty in the hands of a publicity-hound minister (Reverend Harlan Dwyer) that they fall prey to his insistence that murdering Barrows is the only way to save their sister/daughter.

 

As bad it is to paint the LeMars/Schindlers as co-conspirators in the car bombing (Steven actually plants and detonates the pipe bomb), the Dwyer figure comes off far worse. They are stupid, he is manipulative, without principle, and, on his best days, unsavory.

 

When the police first start getting close, he sends them off on a wild goose chase, pointing the finger at a character obviously supposed to be convicted abortion clinic bomber Eric Rudolph. That doesn't work. (Not surprisingly, there are lots and lots of references to abortion clinic bombings.)

 

When Dwyer's fingerprints (literally and figuratively) point to his involvement, Dwyer tries to bargain for a lesser sentence by making Steven absolutely reprehensible: his motivation was the money left from the malpractice suit won by the saintly husband, Dwyer says. When no further reduction is offered, he says flatly that he will never go to jail, which proves to be true.

 

Jack McCoy, the assistant district attorney character, cross-examines Steven on the stand, trying to make him see that he was the sap, talked into killing Barrows as part of Dwyer's insatiable appetite to see himself on television. (The mother has told Jack's assistant the Dwyer told Steven that killing Barrows would be "the most important thing he would ever do in his life.")

 

No dice. Steven is going to take the fall. He is convicted of second-degree murder while the jury deadlocks on Dwyer, who goes free. (The father, whose trial we never see, is charged with a lesser offense.)

 

The last scene in "Age of Innocence" is of the mother, who Jack chose not to charge, tearfully thanking her husband and son for their "sacrifice" on behalf of Karen, who at this point has not been starved to death. Guess who is her spiritual consigliore, the one who comforts her after she speaks into the microphones? Good old Reverend Dwyer.

 

It goes without saying that there is the usual, "I am the instrument of God's vengeance" caricature [vengeance is misspelled, of course], described as another "pro-life nut job" whom we will eventually learn Dwyer recruited to actually build the bomb. [We're also told that he had been a suspect in the bombing of abortion clinics.]

 

The conspiracy gets even wider. When  trying to figure out who might actually have detonated the bomb, one of the detectives mentions that it "could be somebody from the Calvary Hill Foundation."

 

That elicits the response, "religious group," as if that's all that needs be said. What's the connection?  The guy who later proves to be the man who assembled the bomb had been at an "anti-evolution" rally sponsored by the Calvary Hill Foundation.

 

And while the family is allowed to say they expect Karen to recover, in court one of the detectives offers the standard pap on the ferocious debate which goes unchallenged: "Robert had watched Karen waste away for six years and wanted to end her suffering and the LeMar family didn't agree." Gosh, that was easy.

 

Those millions of us addicted to "Law & Order" are hoping against hope that one day Dick Wolf, its creator, will give us a fair shake. Admittedly, we are not holding our breath.

 

If you saw "Age of Innocence," I would very much appreciate your feedback at dandrusko@nrlc.org