Law and Order: Organized Crime is really the only halfway decent Law and Order show on now. SVU is such an inept soap opera and sickening Benson lovefest. The Law and Order reboot is so stiff and dumbed down from the original, it should be ashamed.
But Organized Crime has both a great cast -- except the weird pale computer genius with no affect -- and a sense of drama and momentum the others lack, and you'll notice the acting is more realistic. None of the overly theatrical amateur acting on either SVU or the Law and Order reboot.
But something the Law and Order franchise in general has a poor track record of is in Asian American representation, not just in the lack of regular main cast members but in representating Asian Americans beyond the grotesque stereotypes. (Yes, yes, B. D. Wong, B. D. Wong, but he hasn't been a regular in 15 years.) There are more than a million Asian Americans in NYC alone, but if you watch Law and Order, they're either fresh off the boat, broken English speaking types or gangsters with some sort of insidious, Fu Manchu plot to spring on unsuspecting roundeyes and other Asian Americans. Oh, and 90 percent of the time, they're of Chinese descent, as though no other Asian ethnicities really exist.
To put that in perspective, the Asian American population in NYC is MORE THAN DOUBLE that of Irish Americans, yet we don't see the same limited portrayals.
Really? That's the best you can do?
This is all germane to the most recent arc in Organized Crime, which deals with -- yep, you guessed it -- Asian immigrants fresh off the boat and gangsters with an insidious plot.
Look, this has been done enough. I mean, it plays here like Year of the Dragon and that was 40 years ago. This first episode features more Asian American characters than an entire season of either SVU or the Law and Order reboot, so at least some Asian American actors are working, if temporarily. But the story so far just does the same old same old, using the same tired cliches and the same tired stereotypes.