Man, this could be a splendid series when it was at its best, as it is here. As usual, the first half has to do with corruption and murder in the construction industry. In the course of the police investigation, Chris Noth's partner is executed and after the full-dress funeral, Noth tracks down the killer in a dark alley and forces him to confess by holding a pistol to his head and threatening to pull the trigger. Later, in the interrogation room, the murderer confesses in detail and provides corroborating evidence, if that's the word for telling the cops where the murder weapon is hidden. There's no doubt that he did it.
BUT -- Noth has blown the deal by coercing the original confession in the alley and so all subsequent evidence is inadmissible, maybe. The second half, again, as usual, deals with the prosecution's attempts to put a cop killer away despite the difficulties Noth has introduced into the case.
What I liked about the series is the way it captures the flavor of the streets of New York. (This is not sunny, smoggy Los Angeles, full of empty streets.) The city sizzles in the summer, is wet and chilly in the winter, and smells of diesel exhaust all year round.
Then, too, there are the police officers -- mostly wisecracking detached guys with their eyes on collars and careers. They're almost pitiless in their pursuit of bad guys. The program avoids showing any police brutality which, in my experience as a kid across the river, was taken for granted. And they get huffy if words like "corruption" or "on the pad" are used. If you want greater verisimilitude, see "Serpico." But all of this is done at a zippy pace. No time is given over to personal lives. There are jokes about Noth's girl friends and rueful references to Jerry Orbach's alcoholic past but nothing much is made of them. No dramatic musical score to hype things up. The legal stuff is explained in such a way that a layman can understand it either from the dialog or from the context in which it appears.
They did a nice job in the first few years, and this is a good example of how well it works.
BUT -- Noth has blown the deal by coercing the original confession in the alley and so all subsequent evidence is inadmissible, maybe. The second half, again, as usual, deals with the prosecution's attempts to put a cop killer away despite the difficulties Noth has introduced into the case.
What I liked about the series is the way it captures the flavor of the streets of New York. (This is not sunny, smoggy Los Angeles, full of empty streets.) The city sizzles in the summer, is wet and chilly in the winter, and smells of diesel exhaust all year round.
Then, too, there are the police officers -- mostly wisecracking detached guys with their eyes on collars and careers. They're almost pitiless in their pursuit of bad guys. The program avoids showing any police brutality which, in my experience as a kid across the river, was taken for granted. And they get huffy if words like "corruption" or "on the pad" are used. If you want greater verisimilitude, see "Serpico." But all of this is done at a zippy pace. No time is given over to personal lives. There are jokes about Noth's girl friends and rueful references to Jerry Orbach's alcoholic past but nothing much is made of them. No dramatic musical score to hype things up. The legal stuff is explained in such a way that a layman can understand it either from the dialog or from the context in which it appears.
They did a nice job in the first few years, and this is a good example of how well it works.