December 31, 2003
3 Dawg Night
Not a particularly well-written episode (12.9) inspired by the P. Diddy/J. Lo shooting at a Times Square night club. The episode is pretty true to the actual incident, and includes the detail about a provocateur throwing a handful of bills in the rapper's face and the couple breaking up after the incident. The episode's final act involves a fairly predictable twist involving the J. Lo equivalent, "Allie Lawrence," who is sort of a cross between J. Lo and Halle Berry. The twist leads to an unsatisfying and unbelievable conclusion.
The writing of the episode is by far its weakest point. It's one of the weaker attempts to capitalize on the "ripped from the headlines" technique of screenplay writing. The dialogue is either unoriginal or muddled, and the plot is too predictable to maintain interest. And it's not true to the characters either: Dianne Wiest suggests putting ADA Carver (from SVU) as second chair on the case because he's black, and McCoy lets someone off the hook for a serious crime, not something he would be likely to do under the circumstances.
About the most interesting thing that happens in the episode is that Jack flies to Los Angeles to interview a witness. I've never seen that happen before.
Here's a terrific article on the P. Diddy/J. Lo shooting that is far more interesting than this episode. It discusses the untold story of Shyne Barrow, the young rapper who was convicted of the shooting.
Posted by adm at December 31, 2003 05:37 PM