Part of what I want to do in my this part of the site is write about media that interests me but is otherwise unrelated to autism. First will be be the triumphant twentieth season premiere of Law & Order. It was hard for me to even watch this episode, since NBC scheduled it directly opposite first new CBS episode of my beloved Medium, which NBC canceled to make room for Jay Leno.

I'm very grateful to CBS for picking up the show and will do my part to support it by saying as little as possible about last night's season premiere. It was not a good episode, but Medium nearly always gets the big episodes wrong. They got out the corner the end of last season painted them into (coma, loss of magic powers), and that's enough. I'm still concerned about how well the show will make the transition to a new network, but that's based on how many other shows have faltered in tone in making a similar move. And the fact that, much as I love the cast, the concept is sweaty: how many more variations on this theme can they wring out?

The Law & Order premiere, on the other hand, confirms the major revival that started in 2007 and continued last season.

I guess there is at least a personal autism link with Law & Order: it was my special interest about ten years ago. I had never watched the show, and it was on cable two or three times a day. I was able to completely immerse myself in it. This was my preferred way of watching a television series, until DVDs and downloads made it almost universally possible to watch an entire series from the beginning. I still love it when I can pick up an entire series several seasons in- I watched 30 Rock over the summer, for example, and was so impressed by Alec Baldwin that I didn't mind much at all when Jim Parsons lost to him at last Sunday's Emmy Awards.

Anyway, there was a time when I knew this show like the back of my hand. I remember the glee I felt when Chris Noth lent Mike's iconic coat to Richard Brooks. A friend of mine from college guested on the show, and I realized that I was connected to virtually everyone on the New York stage by three Kevin Bacon degrees or fewer. All New York actors guest on L&O. Last night's episode featured Broadway hunk and AI dad Michael Berresse, for example, and things like that are a big draw for a show queen like myself. I followed the show intently, until it started getting really bad.

For a series that has lasted as long as Law & Order, the quality was impressively consistent until the franchise glut of 2002. Dick Wolfe's attention was on the three other incarnations of the show on the air at the time. The writing got less realistic, more convoluted, ever more "ripped from the headlines."

The cast was already in trouble. Jesse Martin is a superb performer who never found a groove on the show, and hurt it when he came aboard in 1999. The atrocious casting of android Elizabeth Roehm in 2001 was followed by the following year frank admission that, after 9-11, a secular saint like Steven Hill's Adam Schiff could be replaced by a real-life, craven opportunist like Fred Thompson. Like the United States, the show lost its moral compass. And most of its quality. It kept getting worse and worse until the death of Jerry Orbach left it with virtually nothing to recommend it. Some of us felt that with the re-election of George W. Bush the same year was true of our country.

It was easier to stop watching Law & Order than it was to move to Canada, so I stopped watching the show and rejoiced when the election of Barack Obama seemed to signal a return to the idea that the USA wanted to go back to living up to its own values. Obama has proven to be something of a disappointment, so it's great to see Dick Wolfe's show in the best shape it's been in years, trying to hold his feet to the fire.

Actually, the show's revival started in 2007 when Thompson left the cast and Jeremy Sisto joined it. Thompson's departure left the door open for Sam Waterson to reinvent Jack McCoy, first as an opportunist politician, and now as an idealistic one. L&O requires moral authority at both ends, and Sisto is as good at Chris Noth or Benjamin Bratt at playing the good cop.

The cast overall is the strongest it has been since 1999. What needs to happen in the next inevitable overhaul is replacing the two current dull but capable leads (Anthony Anderson and Alana De La Garza) with actors who have comic timing. It's a key component to a show with pacing this tight, and it's the big thing they're lacking right now.

Last season was good, and I'm hoping that this season will be better. If it keeps up with the premiere, it will be.

Yes, this was another "ripped from the headlines" episode, but this one was not the exploitation of a meaningless tragedy. It was an attempt to get us to take seriously torture authorized by the United States government. It was shamelessly manipulative, and fairly effectively so.

Washington already knows that has more to fear from Tina Fey and Jon Stuart than it does from any rean news reporter. Now it has to watch out for Waterson's Jack McCoy, too, no longer limited to the corrupt New York governor.

If you've given up on Law & Order, give it another chance.

Here's a video preview of this season: