Law & Order (TV Series) Panic (2000) User Reviews

Now Is The Time To Panic!

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 4 October 2012]

This has all the felicities of the usual episode but is a little more interesting than some, at least to me, viewing it as a shrink.

A well-known authoress is shot and wounded on the street, and a companion killed. Brisco and Green investigate and suspicion falls on an FBI agent, Tom Berenger, who own the weapon that fired the bullet. Evidence emerges that Berenger was having an affair with the writer. But, unexpectedly, phone records reveal that it was Berenger's wife who was intimate with the woman.

The defense claims "homosexual panic" as an excuse. There is a bit of argument in court, but it emerges that Berenger actually was seen somewhere else in the city at the time of the shooting, and Berenger's wife has an alibi too. So who did the shooting? Without going into more detail, Berenger pleads guilty to murder two and gets it in the neck in order to save the shooter.

"Homosexual panic" is (or was) a recognized emotional state of extreme arousal but was defined in psychiatry as the result of a sudden discovery that the person you are with is gay and may be making advances towards you. It wouldn't have held up in court because a panic doesn't include finding that your SPOUSE is bisexual and then shooting her lover hours later, with premeditation.

Tom Berenger isn't bad as the FBI agent. He never had a major career. He's rather like Treat Williams, just another guy who gets hired from time to time, a kind of utility player. Williams has range as an actor but is hobbled by his high, thin voice, suggestive of weakness. Berenger can't seem to shake a certain kind of sullen screen presence.

Former US Marine, twice wounded. Sound like a man given to excessive panic?

[Mrpalli77 · 9/10 · 21 May 2018]

A man and a woman were shot in a dark alley: she was the only one who managed to survive, who was the target? They had just dinner together at a local restaurant and she ran away from him in the sidewalk. The victim was a married novelist writer whose sales dropped recently after several best-sellers; the last novel was a real bust. Wrong path anyway. As investigation went on, detectives realized the murder weapon belonged to a CIA agent married to a coworker (former Marine) who maybe had an affair with the girl wounded in the shooting. Prosecutors needed evidences about this relationship, because neither the lovers nor their relatives or collegues were willing to testify. Actually, the two women were lovers and her husband (Tom Berenger a little aged from Platoon) wanted to make her pay.

An episode related to homosexuality and the reaction of the audience towards this topic (this time between two women, not between men as usual). Is it sex or is it love? Anyway, wait till the very end, surprises are around the corner.

No way is this panic defense

[bkoganbing · 3/10 · 30 June 2018]

As someone who lobbies for the banning of the panic defense in criminal cases, this Law And Order story has some serious flaws. No way is this story about panic defense.

The claim is usually made against and LGBTQ individual that somehow they came on to them and that this was a threat to masculinity and therefore rage took over and I had to kill this individual. Both in my private life and when I worked for New York State Crime Victims Board I saw this defense used, sometimes sadly successfully and sometimes not.

Tom Berenger is married to Carolyn Edmond and both are FBI agents. He's arrested for murder when he shot and wounded Ruthie Henshall, a lesbian mystery writer who started an affair with Edmond after she and her husband were consultants on a book she was working on. An innocent man who was with Henshall was killed.

Gerry Bamman who was Berenger's defense attorney had to know that this so much bull as Sam Waterston demolishes the defense. It was improperly used however as I well know. Yet there is more to this story than what I have told you.

It's a topic near and dear to me and I wish I could do better by this episode, but I can't.

Panic on the streets

[TheLittleSongbird · 5/10 · 11 November 2021]

Season 10 was actually a very solid season, with a vast majority of the episodes being good to outstanding. Albeit with two episodes that were slightly above average and also two that never clicked with me. It's not the consistently great quality that the Season 10 of 'Criminal Intent' was, but it is infinitely better than that for 'Special Victims Unit', which was a very slow starter, succeeded by moments of greatness in its mid period and then ended badly.

"Panic" is the second of the two 'Law and Order' Season 10 episodes that didn't click with me. The other being "Merger", for fairly similar reasons but "Panic" gets the slight edge when it comes to talking about which was worse (a large part of it being because of the defense argument and because the premise didn't gel). This was an example of an episode where it started off quite well but actually went downhill in the legal scenes, when often it's the legal scenes where an episode gets better.

By all means, "Panic" is not a bad episode. Photography while very close up doesn't come over as too static or filmed play-like, while the production values are typically solid and have subtle atmosphere while not being drab and keeping things simple. When the music is used it is haunting and has a melancholic edge that is not overdone. The direction has enough momentum and breathing space.

The acting is very good from all the regulars, particularly Sam Waterston. Very interesting seeing a younger Ruthie Henshall. Tom Berenger does a very good job as the defendant.

For all those good things, there are things that didn't work. The second half is a bit too over-complicated and tries to cram in too much in too short a space of time. The episode also felt rushed and jumping about-like and motivations and connections could have been fleshed out more as they are vague.

What ruined "Panic" was that the premise was not an easy one to swallow and even more so the truly ridiculous, very one-sided and borderline improbable defense argument that most would find easy to dismiss within a heartbeat. Unfortunately the episode relied a little too much on it and it made it difficult to take the story at face value, which saddens me considering that it is an important and personal topic that is not explored very well. Also the ending felt rushed and felt like it should have been introduced earlier and that would have helped make some of the case more fleshed out.

In summary, watchable but not great. 5/10.

Problem

[WilliamJE · 5/10 · 2 July 2022]

For me at least, it wasn't hard to guess who the real killer was in Panic. Two FBI agents aren't likely to have left such a critical clue at the scene of the crime.