The Law & Order franchise has been headed downhill for a while. Criminal Intent is a really mediocre good cop/bad cop show and the original is running out of ideas, but I have to admit that SVU has really grown on me (and it’s not just Mariska), and I was starting to consider it a ‘favorite,’ until tonight.
We go from a faily typical SVU story line with evidentiary twists and turns (illegal searches, spousal privilege) and somehow we end up with the Schiavo debate. Setting aside the fact that the debate was poorly played out (no Brisco, paraplegics aren’t next-- the issue is not one of whether someone can refuse nutrition/hydration, that has been settled; the issue is, if the person is unable to communicate his or her desires are we to presume that he or she would chose ‘life’, and if so what sort of evidence do we need to overcome that presumption).
Still that’s not what really bothers me. What gets me is: 1) that “Angela from Who’s the Boss” stops a criminal trial to conduct what in most jurisidctions would be a a probate proceeding to determine the wishes of the incompetent – a la Schiavo – does this sort of thing routinely happen in New York, or I am to think that this judge handles both criminal and probate AND just happened to get assigned to both cases?; and 2) that the ADA thinks she has any dog in the fight whatsoever and the show has her arguing at the hearing on the TRO. Crispy Jebus, when did this show become the Practice.
Once upon a time, Law & Order was, in some ways, a sort of reliable look at the criminal justice system – as a 1L my Crim Law professor told us to watch it and find minute flaws, if we could. Now, it’s the Fonz on water skis.
IMO the boat was fired up in that episode from last season (or start of this season, I don’t remember) when we saw Stabler interrogate someone (Matthew Modine? Again I don’t remember) for the entire freakin episode. I heard it decribed as “powerful” but my take was more along the lines of “boring”. Stabler is a caricature anyway, IMO, and I’m not interested in seeing him almost fly off the handle every freakin episode.
Then the skis were strapped on a couple of weeks ago when he goes undercover to get some guy who may be a rapist.
This week it jumped. I’ll give it a few more weeks before I make a decision, but I think it’s probably played out. The original L&O could rip from the headlines a lot more subtly and classily, IMO.
Now, if Stabler were to eat his gun and Munch and Tute become the main players, I’d change my mind in an instant.
You know, I’d seen this thread title before I watched it, and for most of the episode I was wondering where the perceived suck was coming from. Just a run-of-the-mill L&O episode. With Teri Garr! Bonus!
That last fifteen minutes, though – Eeesh.
It’s like the first forty-five minutes only served to reapproach the Schiavo debate from a vantage point where the husband was evil to the core and motivated by greed, as was insinuated so hopefully during that mess.
“Can you expedite that paperwork? I need that million-dollar insurance policy for my appeal. Mwahahahahahaha!” sulphur fumes drift from his hair and clothes
Nit pick - it was Munch, not Brisco. But that rant seemed in line with his (Munch’s) character, IMO.
Anyway, you’re right. The shark been jumped or is dangerously close with this episode.
The bit that did it for me was the jailhouse wedding. Would a prisoner awaiting trial (or in the midst of a trial) even be allowed to get married like that, while in jail? How would he have applied for a marriage license?
Would Cora’s death benefit pay off, if it was determined her death was a suicide?
I’m not a big “L&O” person, though I do like Vincent D’Onofrio, so I sometimes watch “Criminal Intent.” In general, “SVU” is too oogy for me, though I watch it occasionally. It was on last night when the DVD finished, so I started watching it.
Washington. Truman. Ford.
What kept me shaking my head was that all of the action of the story took place in the course of what, a couple of weeks? A month? From the rape being reported at the top of the show to the “show me the money” moment at the end, it all unfolded so freakin’ briskly, with absolutley no nod whatsoever to the idea that life doesn’t move at that pace. What the fuck?
Right, thanks – I don’t know why I get the two confused, and I agree that the rant was in line with his character to a degree (I’ve always thought of him as more of a left wing conspiracy theorist, though – I guess this kind of fits that), which is why I said it’s not really what bothered me. I just noted that the debate was poorly framed.
I also share your questions concerning the marriage license and enforceability of the insurance policy.
Finally, and not to be mean, but Terri Garr is starting look more lile aligator garr. Her smugness has always bothered me too, but it fit her character in this one.
yeah - but the plot completely dissolved!
I keep waiting, episode after episode, for them to interrogate the "guilty"party only to find it was someone else altogether who committed the crime(s)
and i’m with the OP - How does the Schiavo case fit in with the control-freak rapes?
It would have been much better if he’d been caught inside Liv’s apartment with the ski mask on; If wifey had woken up just long enough to give mom some real hope
and WTF was the point of presenting her with that newspaper article at the end? the only thing that did was make Dean’s character a wee bit sympathetic. Then I started thinking that he’d orchestrated the car crash in the Hamptons, just so wimpygirlfriend would see it and get upset - so that she would be quoted as saying she’d not want to live in a PVS.
That happened in a decent episode. They accuse a private school coach of molesting a little girl and a whole bunch of copycat accusations follow. The guy is ruined because in the investigation they dredge something up that happended at his old job but that he failed to report at this one (I forget what). Even though he is finally exonerated by the discovery of the real predator (a teenage boy) he can’t return to the school/loses his friends, etc.
Last couple of years I’ve thought SVU was the best of the three by far. There have been some really touching and well done-episodes, but I agree that last night’s was awful. I’m just wondering if they won’t have a follow-up next week to deal with the doc?
I’ve been struck by how good Mariska is, and kept thinking that her last name sounded familiar, so looked up her bio. Maybe everybody else knew this, but just as I thought, she is the daughter of the late Jane Mansfield.
The episode a few weeks ago where she kept talking on the phone to a kidnapped young girl was outstanding acting. Her facial expressions told it all.
I used to be really fond of SVU (partially because someone I went to school with regularly plays a crime scene tech) but last night - oy!
I thought it was a good, tight story (except for not letting him break into the apartment with Liv as someone else commented) but then the left turn at Schiavo.
Himself & I spent the last 15 minutes going WTF? and repeating “I really don’t like the way they’re doing this.”
I don’t know that I’m going to be able to manage to watch it again…I haven’t quite given up hope, but dayum, that was REALLY out there.
SVU is my favorite of the L&O’s but count me in with the votes that last nights episode was very poor. Maybe I missed an important piece of dialogue, but was the actual plotline ever resolved? Was the guy convicted or what? I didn’t care about the wife’s (whatever her name was…Maggie from Six Feet Under) outcome, I was waiting the whole time to find out the end to the rape storyline! It seemed like they totally dropped the story to focus on some out of the way thing (that btw, was already done on I think the regular L&O a few weeks ago.) We don’t need any more Schiavo based episodes!
I was very confused at how they completely veered off the rape plot to crash into the Terri Schiavo wannabe plot, especially since the original L&O did a Ripped from the Headlines on Schiavo not two or three weeks ago. It would have been much better if they had concentrated on the speed-dating rapist. That could have gone somewhere.
Aw, back off Teri a bit eh? She’s in her fifties and is battling Multiple Sclerosis. She’s still sexy in my book.