Briscoe and Logan investigate after a convicted child molester, Dr. Joseph Vinton, is murdered on a controversial talk show hosted by Rick Mason (Robert Klein). The shooter is easily identified — he's Sid Fisher (Steve Ryan), the father of the dead man's victim from three years earlier. During the course of the investigation, however, the detectives find evidence that leads them to believe that Mason may have set up Vinton's murder so as to assure high ratings during sweeps period. Stone's case is made more difficult because Sid Fisher isn't willing to say anything that could put his son, Scotty (David Krumholtz), on the stand.

• First appearance of S. Epatha Merkerson as Lieutenant Anita Van Buren and Jill Hennessy as Assistant District Attorney Claire Kincaid.

A disruptive, unbalanced homeless man Roland Kirk is found severely beaten in an alley of the middle-class neighborhood he calls home, leading Stone to try and prosecute one of the residents for premeditated murder.

A dig at a building site uncovers the body of Sid Cohen, who had gone missing and been presumed murdered years earlier. The identification of the body proves troublesome for Stone, who had initially prosecuted Phillip Swann fourteen years earlier and had obtained a conviction. Swann uses inconsistencies between the original trial and the location of the body to seek an appeal.

• This episode was the basis for the Law & Order: UK episode "Unsafe".

When teenager Chris Pollit (Wil Horneff) beats a fellow foster home resident Johnny Lasky to death, his lawyer Helen Brolin seeks a not guilty verdict by reason of genetic defect, claiming that Pollit is genetically predisposed to violence because he has an extra Y chromosome.

• This episode was the basis for the Law & Order: UK episode "Unloved".

After 82-year-old Mildred Bauer is found dead in her apartment, suspicion immediately turns to her at-home caregiver and her boyfriend until the medical examiner reveals that the elderly woman had been starved to death. Feeding instructions given to Maria by Laura, the deceased woman's granddaughter, turn Stone's eye on the young woman, and she is charged with neglect and grave indifference to human life.

• This episode was the basis for the Law & Order: UK episode "Mortal".

During a 24-hour period, Briscoe and Logan have to deal with three unrelated homicides: an aspiring actor shot in the head, a woman maiming her cheating husband, and a store owner killed in a robbery.

• This episode was the basis for the Law & Order: UK episode "Dawn till Dusk".
• One of the cases in this episode is revisited in "Entitled" (2000), a two-parter which begins on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Briscoe and Logan bet that the killing of Ben Williams a star athlete's father is linked to gambling debts and threats to the baseball player's family, but it turns out the son Pat's alibi does not hold up and he ends up under suspicion himself.

A black minister fans the flames of racial intolerance after a Jewish man Joshua Berger is not indicted for a hit-and-run which resulted in the death of black 12-year-old Damon Fox. The result is a riot which ends in a black teenager beating an Italian man to death after he mistook him for Jewish.

• In 1997, TV Guide ranked this episode #79 on its list of the 100 Greatest Episodes.^[20]

A truck hits a pedestrian and the investigation reveals Steven Green the victim's link to a baby-food company in which a new partner has connections to the Russian mob.

• Final appearance of Michael Moriarty as Executive Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone.