When these murders took place in real life, they shook the world with horror and disbelief. Those feelings are reignited with the deliciously morbid quality of The Menendez Murders, literally like a slow motion retroactive murder you can't take your eyes off.

Falco and her curls steal the show. They’re both are fascinating. The “true crime” part is much less so.

Rene Balcer's writing and Lesli Linka Glatter's direction keep things moving, and if these two episodes don't promise anything terribly deep, they're packed with enough good performances and details (an alibi conversation revolving around a supposed meeting at the Beverly Hills Cheesecake Factory, for instance) to make us curious about what comes next.

Ultimately, with a sensational story and a strong lawyer championing her cause, there's plenty here to sustain Law & Order fans. Even if they already know how this trial ends.

All of this is very watchable, as with all Law & Order, but not without coating the viewer in a little true slime. ... The Menendez Murders, in comparison, simply feels like the most high-profile case that Dick Wolf, the Law & Order impresario, could grab the rights to.

It only offers up a paint-by-numbers approach to rehashing of the touchstones of a well-known case rather than delving deeper into the lifestyle of the brothers and those around them, something beyond the character cameos of a typical Law & Order episode.

Mostly, either the Menendez story was ill-suited for an eight-hour miniseries or the Law & Order approach was ill-suited to telling the story, because although there's absolutely an aspect to the case that is notable and distinctive, through the two hours sent to critics, Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders is mainly a lot of wigs and rich kids behaving badly. ... This didn't need to be an eight-hour miniseries.