User Reviews

"Foul Play" sounded like the sort of story that 'Law and Order' was known to excel well in. It does sound ordinary on first glance, but had real potential to be an episode that had a topic that was current and happened a lot back then and is still relevant. 'Law and Order' did do well often at making something complex out of what sounds basic when getting the basic jist of the synopsis. Other episodes in Season 12 took on more challenging subjects with rather varied success, but that was in no way an issue.

Although Season 12 did better episodes, such as "For Love or Money" and "Myth of Fingerprints", which had more emotional impact and intensity, there are also far worse episodes ("DR 1-102", "The Fire this Time"). Where realism was not a strong suit, where the subjects were not handled tactfully and focused on less interesting characters. "Foul Play" is not a great or perfect episode, but in my view it is not deserving of being one of the lower rated episodes of Season 12.

It does start off on the ordinary and familiar side, with familiar plot tropes, though it still intrigued and Briscoe and Green are a great team. The conclusion is somewhat over-crowded and rushed.

Did think too that the supporting characters could have been written with more subtlety and not as stereotyped. Elisabeth Rohm is still wooden and the chemistry between her and Sam Waterston (fine as usual) is completely bland.

The acting otherwise though is very good across the board, with strong performances from Orlando J Torres and Larry Joshua. The regulars are excellent, especially in the second half. The story becomes a good deal more interesting when things turn out not what they seemed at first, and the turn in the plot is not handled abruptly or jarringly. The case also becomes more intricate and handles a relevant subject with edge and enough tact.

Furthermore, "Foul Play" doesn't look drab or gaudy, and the editing is far from slapdash. The music avoids getting too melodramatic in the more dramatic moments while not being too low key, it has always been a good move that it is used relatively sparingly. The direction especially shines in the character interaction in the second half. The script is beautifully balanced, there is a lot of talk but taut enough to avoid it from waffling.

Good episode all in all. 7/10.

This episode truly shows the corruption that can set into sports, even youth sports. The only really innocent ones are the kids and they won't stay innocent in this day and age. Where are the Chip Hiltons of today?

Jerry Orbach and Jesse Martin catch a case of a former detective now turned PI found shot to death in an abandoned apartment in Washington Heights. They actually spend a lot of time running down a false lead from one of the deceased's cases. However indirectly that investigation does send them in the right direction.

Which is concerning a youth baseball league where entrepreneur Larry Joshua could be seeing his empire collapse. Another rival league hired the deceased to investigate ringers and they find one in young Orlando J. Torres who is 14 and not 12 and using his cousin's ID. Joshua brought him and his father from Honduras because of the kid's talent. All Joshua needs to do is discover a potential Alex Rodriguez and he has it made.

I won't go into the details but Joshua is not the actual shooter. But Sam Waterston and Elisabeth Rohm feel there's culpability there and try him. He's a slick article pretending to be the savior of inner city youth.

The deceased was a man doing his job. But I really did like the way Jesse Martin put down the head of that other league when he sanctimoniously talks about cheating. These kids from Harrison, New York are shall we say more insulated.

Two workers lost their eyes over a charming bystander, broken the first floor window as a result with a ladder. Luckily for them the apartment, placed on a shanty building, was vacant, but inside there was a body shot dead. The victim was a private investigator, so Briscoe and Green dug inside the man's cases. He followed up classical cases involving wives against cheating husbands and one of them lead the detectives to the building where the crime scene is located. Anyway the right case was different: the private eye was hired to investigate inside the youth baseball league, where a Honduran boy (Orlando J. Torres) looked a lot older than his peers. He might have changed ID with his cousin and the local coach, who used to look for new talents all over the world, might have staged everything. It's up to McCoy to convict the conman who pulled the strings.

Third world fake identities in sport is a matter very popular even in Europe. There was a case in my Country involving a football player named Joseph Minala from Cameroon who played in the youth league even though he looked 30 years old at least (he declared eighteen at the time).