‘Law & Order’ Tough On Maintaining Excellence

NBC has taken to hyping “Law & Order” as “the second-longest-running drama series on network television.” No one mentions it would have to stay on the schedule through 2001 to match “Murder, She Wrote’s” tenure right now.

Still, this splendid cops-and-lawyers drama has earned its share of bragging rights as it starts its sixth season Wednesday at 10 p.m. And not just for hanging on, or even for finessing its once-marginal ratings into a solid viewership.

What really sets “Law & Order” apart, after five years and counting, is its brand of consistent excellence.

Granted, consistency may seem an odd word to apply to “Law & Order,” at least from the standpoint of its revolving-door ensemble. Every spring since “Law & Order’s” first has marked the departure of at least one cast member. Then each fall ushers in new blood.

This season, Benjamin Bratt bows as Detective Reynaldo “Rey” Curtis. He replaces Christopher Noth who, as Detective Mike Logan, had been the last of the show’s five charter members.

Has any other series weathered a complete cast turnover? Doubtful. But “Law & Order” is all the more remarkable in that, through all the comings and goings, it has remained true to its original vision. Sample the repeats aired at 8 p.m. weeknights on cable’s A&E channel and you see: “Law & Order,” while evolving, is rock solid.

Now welcome Bratt, 31, who starred on the series “Nasty Boys” and in the miniseries “Texas” and appeared in the films “Clear and Present Danger” and “Demolition Man.”

The character he brings with him, Rey Curtis, is a young academy-trained detective whose conservative views clash with his more freewheeling and streetwise elder, Detective Lennie Briscoe, played by Jerry Orbach.

Thus does life imitate art: Bratt steps in as new partner for Orbach, whose first three years on the series were spent side-by-side with Noth. But while Lennie and Rey will butt heads, “Jerry couldn’t have been more gracious in bringing me into the fold,” says Ben. “He made me feel completely comfortable.”

Not that Bratt’s initiation was completely stress-free.

“The very first scene we shot, I was visibly shaky,” he admits. “But when it was over, I bounded back to the trailer, thinking, ‘Wow, I’m really doing this!’ Everything was fine after that.”

Orbach, who in his long career has starred on Broadway, in films such as “Dirty Dancing” and “Postcards from the Edge,” and on TV’s “The Law and Harry McGraw,” says he signed on for “Law & Order” hoping it would last at least one more year. That was November 1992.

Now the man who became Chris Noth’s third partner carries on in the absence of Noth, in effect an aging Baby Boomer who was traded in for Bratt, a Generation X-er.

Orbach says Noth is still a friend, but concedes that “toward the end, both Briscoe and Logan were seeming a little world-weary. With this (Briscoe-Curtis) generation gap, it’s a whole new deal.”