Law & Order (TV Series) Flight (1998) User Reviews

Well, he was having a mid-life crisis

[Mrpalli77 · 8/10 · 6 May 2018]

A child was found dead in a kindergarten by a preschool teacher. Medical examiner stated he was killed by a bacteria brought from abroad that could cause quarantine. Science project or terrorism attack? None of this. Someone injected with a syringe the poison. A guy at the hospital died from the same reason shortly after, the two murders were connected, so detectives looked for the needle. Boy's father (Dylan Baker) have had an affair with a charming woman for almost a year, paying her rent with no intention to leave his wife; this situation drove his mistress crazy. Incriminated needle was found in her building trash and she confessed, but the married man denied all his involvement. Is he capable of hurting his own son? Emblezzlement from his employer and a ticket to Fiji island didn't help him.

Escaping from a boring life could have been the motive, but all the prosecutors were doubtful about that. Judge said marital privilege apply to this case and this make things very difficult for the conviction. To solve the case....McCoy wanted so hard to indict the corporation owner of the bacteria, but something terrible stopped all his efforts.

Just checking out

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 3 September 2020]

The perpetratoir of this Law And Order episode is one of the most monstrous ever portrayed in the history of the show. A child is killed by the simple injection of a deadly disease into him. A simple pinprick and two days later the kid is dead.

After exhausting the terrorism angle Jerry Orbach and Benjamin Bratt are left with the horrifying possibility it was one of the parents. They catch father Dylan Baker with a wad of cash, passport, and a plane ticket to Fiji.

But Sam Waterston also has a problem with the laboratory and their lax procedures who sent the toxin to Baker for use. How he handles Jack Gilpin the company attorney is a thing of beauty.

Still the main storyline concerns Baker. J.K.Simmons explains the psychology, but is still aghast at the horror as is everyone else.

A shocking stiry with a shocking climax.

Excellent.

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 28 April 2017]

One of the reasons this show is -- or was -- so enjoyable is that it's not only entertaining, as in, "Will they catch the guy and pin it on him?" It's informative too. A viewer not only learns about the law. I mean, how else are you going to learn what the hell a "writ of mandamus" is? It also brings up ethical issues, moral as well as legal.

Por ejemplo: A medical supply company sells a deadly toxin to a murderer's fake address. The murderer uses it to inject into his young son to spare him the horrors of growing up, thus killing the little kid. When queried by the agents of social control, the supply company conveniently loses the evidence of the sale.

So who is responsible? The father who did the killing? Does it make a difference if he did it to relieve his son of a burdensome life? The company that failed to vett the buyer and is trying to elude persecution? What's the distinction between using a lethal virus to kill someone and running over a target deliberately with a car? Does GM bear any responsibility for the death? Are gun manufacturers guilty of anything if one of their pistols is used in a murder? What about the manufacturers of the box the virus was sent in? Or how about the U.S. Postal Service for delivering it? As usual, the program raises issues like this and then deftly dodges them, maybe because the answers are too complicated, or maybe because there are no clear answers.

In any case, McCoy is an skillful ADA and he and the detectives manage to nail both parties legally even if by tricky means. There's no real doubt about the father's immorality. He was cheating on his wife, cheating on his mistress, and was about to take a flight to Fiji and open a restaurant with embezzled money.

He was despondent because he was no more than a number cruncher at an insurance company and was determined to begin an entirely new life in the South Pacific. The life he'd led so far wasn't one he wanted his son to enjoy.

The medical supply company gets a fine equal to five years' profits, as befits their greater moral distance from the filicide.

Brilliant Episode with a Brilliant Lawyer

[s_l_wood · 10/10 · 19 May 2010]

This episode was well written, and showed how extremely intelligent and effective Jack McCoy is as a District Attorney. A total sleaze bag is accused of fatally poisoning his son, and McCoy needs the mans employers to cooperate. The employer, a pharmaceutical company, is reluctant, and McCoy makes a deal with them. I do not want to spoil his sophisticated courtroom tactics, but it shows how rare and gifted he is as an intellectual. This episode is Law and Order at its best: showing us the legal strategies and tremendous amount of work the lawyers invest in their cases. Sure, the public can read about such a trial in the newspaper, but not get the whole picture. Law and Order gives us a look at the lawyers, behind the scenes. Also, in Canada and the USA the alleged perpetrators have so many rights, it is often difficult for District Attorneys to make any progress at all. Watch this episode and you will see Jack McCoy as a lawyer, and as a genius.

Flight of the monster

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 12 August 2021]

On first watch "Flight" struck me as a very powerful episode and one of the few episodes of Season 9 that hit me hard emotionally. Which took some doing as there are quite a few episodes in the season that stirred emotion in me. It has one of those subjects that makes one feel a lot of anger and sadness internally and externally, emotions that is felt naturally rather than feeling forced to feel those things. Something not unusual for the 'Law and Order' franchise overall before and since.

"Flight" still, after multiple re-watches, is an immensely powerful and shocking episode and one of Season 9's finest. It does help that the subject matter is one of the most intriguing and most unsettling of all the episodes of the season (as well as one of the more difficult ones), and "Flight's" approach to it is unflinching and far from sugar-coated. Which is what is so great about 'Law and Order' at its best, its willing to tackle bold controversial topics and do so in a way that doesn't shy away.

It's hard to know where to begin praising when everything in "Flight" is so brilliant. The production values are suitably slick and gritty, with photography that is reliant on close ups that have an intimacy without being too claustrophobic. The music is didn't come over as too melodramatic or like it was emphasising the emotion too much. The direction is sympathetic while still giving momentum.

Script is very sharp, thoughtful and punchy, especially in the dramatically scorching final third. The subject is handled tactfully but at the same time also unflinchingly, leaving me both shocked and angry at how anybody could even contemplate let alone do what is done. The story keeps one glued to the edge of the seat and keeps one guessing all the way through to the episode's not predictable end. The legal portion being even better than the still enormously entertaining and grippingly gritty policing. The ending is one of the show's most shocking definitely.

Performances are top notch, with a truly powerful and unsettling guest turn from Dylan Baker.

Concluding, brilliant and one of the best of the season. 10/10.