Law & Order (TV Series) Nurture (1994) User Reviews

Suffer the little children

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 5 September 2017]

Young Stephi Lineburg does not report to school one day and Jerry Orbach and Chris Noth get the case. She's a kid in foster care and looking at both the birth mother Ann McDonough and foster care guardian Camryn Manheim, neither are people I'd leave kids with.

A woman Lisa Eichhorn who volunteers at the grade school who took a real interest in the child and who lost her only child ten years ago, has been keeping her. When she's apprehended Eichhorn becomes the darling of child advocates and critics of our overworked and abused foster care system.

Christine Baranski is her attorney and an attorney for the child advocacy group. She's got one great sympathetic client and Michael Moriarty knows it. He wants this one to just go away and tries a few tricks to make that happen. Baranski wants no deals as she feels sympathy for the kid's plight and the fact that one adult was really concerned will triumph.

Scenes with young Lineburg and Jill Hennessy trying to prep her witness are quite moving.

See how Moriarty fares.

Routine Plot, Great Child Actors

[Better_TV · 7/10 · 3 May 2018]

Really good casting for the little kids in this one, but the plot gave me deja vu.

Boiled down: Little girl goes missing from school, and she may have been kidnapped by a well-to-do author. Given the state of her foster home, where she's ignored by a cruel, cigarette-smoking Camryn Manheim and occasionally even beaten, perhaps she's better off with the kidnapper.

The wrinkle: Is the kidnapper (played by Lisa Eichorn, who I recognized as the victim-turned-hitwoman in season 3's "Point of View") doing the deed out of pure altruism, or out of a sense of dissociation from reality, where she's perceiving the kid (played excellently by Stephi Lineburg) to be her own dead daughter who died when she was only a few months old?

The other standout child actor in the episode is Zelda Harris, playing Lineburg's classmate who initially reports her missing. The kid's got acting chops for sure, more than holding her own in scenes with the other adult actors and in a one-on-one park bench interview with Jerry Orbach. And Christine Baranski (currently one of TV's most prestigious actresses with starring roles on "The Good Wife" and "The Good Fight") isn't bad at all as the defense attorney.

Still, this is an average episode, that doesn't really do anything unique. There are better episodes pitting prosecutor Ben Stone's rigid principles against the reality of the cases he pursues. While there's some tense excitement in the detective segment, when Logan and Briscoe still aren't sure exactly what happened to the vanished child, things become more routine once the plot starts settling into familiar territory.

Care and protection

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 15 October 2020]

On my first watch, "Nurture's" plot on paper did not excite me massively with it not sounding like anything new with familiar story tropes. In execution, it struck me as solid enough and with enough to maintain interest, elevated by the performances, but the storytelling was not a massive amount to write home about with not much distinct about it. So it was one of those liked it but not loved it episodes, a lesser Season 4 effort (not a bad thing as the lesser Season 4 episodes still had a lot to like).

My feelings a couple of re-watches later for "Nurture" are pretty much exactly the same. It is a disappointment after such an outstanding previous episode in "Sanctuary", have seen this more than once with episodes following on from brilliance, and it could have been a better episode if it took more risks and wasn't so familiar plot-wise. Good thing that the performances all round are so good and they raise the episode from being very average to decent but never mind-blowing.

"Nurture" does have a lot of things that work. As usual for 'Law and Order' and its spin offs, the production values are solid and the intimacy of the photography doesn't get static or too filmed play-like. The music when used is not too over-emphatic and has a melancholic edge that is quite haunting. The direction is sympathetic enough without being leaden, while never being particularly inspired.

The writing has enough moments where it provokes thought and is intriguing. The story does have moments of tension and the conflict is believable enough in the latter stages with a difficult subject being handled tactfully if not quite insightfully. The characterisation is interesting, especially for the perpetrator and the children. The performances are what makes "Nurture" better than it deserved to be, the regulars are all great as is Lisa Eichorn in one of several appearances for the whole franchise (not just the original 'Law and Order'). It is one of not many episodes of 'Law and Order' to have child actor performances that are even better than those of the adults, Stephi Lineberg is beyond her years brilliant especially in her poignant chemistry with Jill Hennessy as Kincaid.

Less brilliant is the story. Competent enough but needed more spark, due to its lack of originality. It's a familiar subject that has been done many times before and since (or at least in some of the ideas) in the show, the franchise and elsewhere, and the episode does little fresh with it. Was surprised by very little of what went on in the story and thought the pace needed more urgency.

Something that, some tension in places aside, wasn't always there. The episode sometimes did feel over-stretched and slightly thin and feels very routine and too conventional in execution, the early portions in particular are fairly by the numbers.

In summary, decent but not great. The acting (especially Lineberg's) is the main reason to check it out, as well as if you are a 'Law and Order' enthusiast. 7/10

Kids

[safenoe · 6/10 · 14 November 2023]

Christine Baranski guest stars in Nurture, and this was just before her career exploded in Cybill, which was a sublime 90s sitcom. Also Camryn Manheim guest stars in Nurture, just before her career exploded in The Practice. Believe it or not, just a few episodes earlier, Steve Harris guest starred, and he also was cast in The Practice.

Lisa Eichhorn also guest stars, and seriously she could be cast as Reece Witherspoon, such is the resemblance.

Anyway, here we have a Robin Hood situation where Lisa's character rescues wayward kids, and one can kind of empathize with here because if the kids in Harmony Korine's Kids were rescued they New York City would be a safer place.

Call me by my new name

[Noir-It-All · 3/10 · 23 April 2020]

My big problem with the episode was the character of the little girl in foster care. When Logan finds the bedroom secreted in the basement of her rescuer's brownstone, she is inside, contentedly watching television. Although it is understandable that she didn't miss her foster caregiver, I thought she would miss her friend who had been looking out for her with the support of her mother. This included inviting her over for hot meals with their family. At the start of the episode, the friend refused to get in the school bus without the foster child, putting herself in danger. Her concern led them to the authorities.