"It's nice to go out on a win."

It was the end of an era last night (kind of) as Detective Lennie Briscoe worked his last case on Law & Order. I say “kind of,” because the Briscoe will be a part of the new L+O spin-off coming this fall, Trial By Jury.

It was a solid, if unspectacular episode, concerning a pair of female acquaintances who conspire to off the other’s husbands (and thus have alibis for themselves). It was really no different than your standard L+O episode. I guess I was expecting Lennie’s last case to be something huge, some big conspiracy case or maybe nailing a serial killer. Oh well.

We got a nice scene at the end as Lennie packed up his stuff and said goodbye, but that’s about it. But no goodbye from McCoy? Come on! Then again, characters that leave the show don’t get big send-offs, unless you count the time they killed Claire Kincaid.

I’m sure Law and Order will persevere. After all, counting Dennis Farrina’s arrival next fall, there will have been 13 major cast changes in the show’s 14 year history. That’s astonishing. And while it was time for Lennie to go (Jerry Orbach’s just a tad too old to play a homicide detective), he will be missed. At least we’ll always have syndication.