- Network: NBC
- Series Premiere Date: Sep 26, 2017
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Critic Reviews
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I enjoyed [the first two episodes] in the same way I once enjoyed the original “Law & Order,” as an entertaining but not challenging way to pass some time. Also, amid all the workmanlike performances, Edie Falco is captivating as Leslie Abramson, the defense attorney with trademark blond curls, and Josh Charles is effectively creepy as the morally abhorrent therapist Dr. Jerome Oziel. But The Menendez Murders has very little of the breadth and context that distinguished “American Crime Story.”
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Of the two episodes presented to critics, the first is markedly better. ... Every actor, from Falco to supporting players Reaser and Edwards, seems to be relishing the chance to ham it up a little, and at least in that arena, Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders delivers admirably. ... There is a covenant of trust with the viewer to present a case impartially, and by the second episode, that trust has mostly evaporated.
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A promising premiere gives way to a duller second episode that forgets its pulpy nature, becoming the TV equivalent of a patrolman’s beat. There’s enough here to warrant further investigation, though, including a great cast led by Edie Falco.
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The verdict is still out after the first two chapters, which merely seem guilty of dramatic exploitation. [2-15 Oct 2017, p.15]
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All of this is very watchable, as with all Law & Order, but not without coating the viewer in a little true slime. ... The Menendez Murders, in comparison, simply feels like the most high-profile case that Dick Wolf, the Law & Order impresario, could grab the rights to.
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The most successful shows of the current true-crime boom do more than just lay out the facts, but there isn’t much indication that True Crime will be more than a competently produced eight-part Law & Order episode.
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Showrunner Rene Balcer, who previously drew inspiration from the Menendez murders to write a 1991 “Law & Order” episode, steers his writers to take the same dry approach here as he did sixteen years ago, walking us through the particulars of the tale with all the spark of a burned out docent on her last museum tour of the day.
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The first installment of the eight-episode drama, which airs Tuesday night on NBC, is murder-reenactment-by-the-numbers, complete with black-and-white flashbacks, an oppressively ominous and omnipresent score, and a script that continually feels the need to point out the patently obvious.
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It only offers up a paint-by-numbers approach to rehashing of the touchstones of a well-known case rather than delving deeper into the lifestyle of the brothers and those around them, something beyond the character cameos of a typical Law & Order episode.
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Falco is so much better than the rest of the cast that the show quickly splits itself into terrific scenes that she is in vs. ho-hum scenes that she is not. ... What you have here is a drawn-out period piece about a period and an event that aren’t worth remembering.
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They play like an old-school Law & Order episode elongated well past the point of interest, without any of the nuance or larger sociological implications that justified Murphy and friends devoting so much time to the O.J. Simpson trial.
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It’s more mechanical and less thoughtful, lacking a larger curiosity. Its first two plodding episodes play like the opening acts of a way-too-extended episode of the original “Law & Order.”
User score distribution:
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Positive: 14 out of 25
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Mixed: 7 out of 25
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Negative: 4 out of 25
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Sep 27, 2017
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Nov 15, 2017
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Oct 14, 2017