Law & Order meets Homicide: NBC’s–and TV’s–two top dramatic series are at it again, arranging field trips onto each other’s turf for a pair of crossover episodes. The tour bus makes its first stop Wednesday (9 p.m., WMAQ-Ch. 5) on “L&O’s” New York stomping grounds, where a 14-year-old budding supermodel is found dead. Detectives Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) wonder about her parents but soon come to suspect an obsessive fan. Friday (9 p.m., WMAQ) it’s back to “Homicide: Life on the Street’s” Baltimore, where the parents live. There’s some sharp banter between the two series’ principals, especially relating to the fact that Briscoe dated the ex-wife of “Homicide” Detective Munch (Richard Belzer). But unlike the first such crossover, from a couple of years back, this one feels less like a story, more like a sweeps-month stunt, engineered to draw extra attention to shows that don’t get all they deserve. Following the story’s contrivances to get the action shifted from one place to the other, it’s as if you can hear the bus driver shouting out that it’s time to head down to Baltimore. But these are still two engaging hours, and you at least come away knowing how the producers feel about the JonBenet Ramsey killing.
