Laws and Order
I’ve been catching up on seasons of the two successful Law & Order spin-offs (Criminal Intent and Special Victims Unit) on USA. Criminal Intent‘s twist is that it follows the Major Case Squad (who pursue, theoretically, if not in practice, more serious offenders than they do on the other franchises) and shows scenes of perpetrators to the viewer that the cops are not privy to. This leaves the viewer in the position of knowing more at times than the detectives. Clever. SVU, on the other hand, has one twist: it follows the sex crimes unit. Ouch.
First off, whoever at USA Network thought viewers could stomach three hours of sex crimes per day is out of his (yeah, probably his) mind. It’s horrible. Every one makes you want to vomit. At its best, it’s art. At its worst, it’s exploitation. Never is it entertainment. But moving on:
Criminal Intent is my favored of the two, despite a revolving-door cast and the current status quo, where it’s essentially two shows, with different casts, interwoven into something they call the same show. I’ve missed a lot of years of it. And I’ve missed a lot. At it’s best, it’s up there with the best on television.
I had to take a break from my DVRed episode of one episode of Criminal Intent, entitled To The Bone. In the first half hour, you have:
* The bloodiest, Mansonesque crime scenes this side of the Saw franchise, more graphic than anything I have ever seen on TV, including gaping machete wounds and severed hands and fingers on whole butchered families including little children,
* Crime scenes with bloody spatter and bloody hand-prints covering the walls,
* A medical examiner at the crime scene with a smock drenched in blood, making her look like a butcher who has just pulled a double shift,
* A creepy-as-fuck Whoopi Goldberg playing a foster mom who I am certain we’re going to find out is masterminding the murder sprees,
* Mike Logan (Chris Noth) trying to break up a brutal gang attack, in the process shooting and critically injuring an undercover cop,
* Noth’s Emmy-worthy, heart-wrenching, stomach-turning reaction to realizing he’s just shot a badge,
* Assorted other goodies, like onscreen copious vomiting and graphic descriptions of minors sodomized with foreign objects,
* And all without a single “Viewer Discretion Advised” notice (which every episode of House, bizarrely, gets), even when this stuff is being aired as a repeat at 6 p.m., on basic cable, on a weeknight.
I watch horror movies, but this network show is enough for me that I’ve had to take a break. But if they showed a single bare breast? They couldn’t have aired it in the first place. Per our previous discussion: I don’t give a fuck, Bob Mike, this is fucking fucked up. Anyone who would censor above-the-waist female nudity and allow this adult material to be shown to their children are simply wrong. This is not “parents’ discretion”. They are fucking wrong. Anyone who thinks otherwise, I’ll meet you at the virtual flagpole (the comments section). Come with knuckles bared.
OK. Deep breath. Wonderful acting. Wonderful screenwriting. I’m just going to hope no children watched this, take a few laps around the house, and go back for the second half.
Maybe.
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13 Responses to “Laws and Order”
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February 7th, 2008 at 22h14
Come with knuckles bared.
Oh, and if you’re female, breasts bared, too. Thanks.
February 8th, 2008 at 03h12
I don’t want to fight you, sorry. Criminal Intent is my favorite show. I didn’t get into it until a couple of years ago. And I have to say, I only like the episodes with Goren (D’Onofrio), otherwise, I don’t even bother watching them, so needless to say, I missed the episode you just described. SVU is another favorite, and yes, it definitely can be disturbing. Can’t say I love the entire franchise, since I’ve never seen a single episode of the original, go figure.
February 8th, 2008 at 07h17
Hi Karina. The “knuckles bared” was just if you thought CI was appropriate for kids. There’s no problem with it as an adults’ show.
The CI episodes with Goren are easily in my top three favorite dramas on the air — maybe even my second favorite. I would have told you, prior to that episode last night, that the Logan episodes didn’t even rank (I frequently skip them when they’re recorded, since my recorder can’t tell the Logan episodes from the Goren episodes.) But I watched that one, and Noth’s acting was really great.
SVU can be great art, too. Both the spin-offs are, in my opinion, better than the original ever was. But be honest: could you watch three SVUs a day? Or am I just overly sensitive?
February 8th, 2008 at 09h11
You’ll get no argument from me that it should have come with a proper warning regarding the content. I’ve never seen any of the L&O spin-offs, so I can’t speak for their content, but I think that people should know from the start what it is that’s going to be beamed into their brains.
It’s strange how our reactions to violence can change depending on how it’s presented. When my former roommate and I were rewatching Millennium, we couldn’t watch more than a single episode a day. It just hit us too hard. Contrast that with Rome, where we stood up and cheered watching Titus Pullo bite the tongue out of some guy’s head (Rome! ROME! ROME!!! There is no show but Rome!). Rome is, by far, the more violent and graphic of the two programs, but our views of carnage went from uncomfortable silence to spectator sport in the time it took to switch DVDs.
February 8th, 2008 at 09h24
I was surprised and impressed when Showtime (?) added Rape as one of their keyworded content warnings preceding programs.
Typical fare for a night of SVU airings: one episode about a woman raped and murdered, one about a bunch of kids molested (I would not let Niall memorize the lines the child actors on that show have to recite), and one about a mother throwing her newborn in the trash. After a while, you just want to kinda die.
Millennium, though, I had no problem watching in big chunks, because the fantastic acting and art direction made me feel like I was walking around a museum, not watching entertainment. For Terminator, though, I cheer at the violence, especially Terminator-on-Terminator.
I’d say something about “Different strokes”, but it’s best to avoid that expression when talking about disturbing television. The reader could easily get confused.
February 8th, 2008 at 09h28
The second half of the CI episode was a big letdown, by the way. They dropped the ball, which was really unfortunate considering the boundary-stretching stuff they did in the first half.
February 8th, 2008 at 09h39
I’m not a fan of action/gore-y/extremely violent movies, I have a weak stomach, so I have no idea what those shows are like, but something tells me I don’t want to watch them. Jeez.. I cringe every time I watch the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. I wish I could just cover my eyes, but I can’t look away!
To answer you question: everything’s OK in moderation, so no, I’ve never been able to watch more than a couple episodes of SVU in a row. Criminal Intent, that I’ve watched entire marathons of though. XD
February 8th, 2008 at 09h40
I’ve never been able to watch more than a couple episodes of SVU in a row. Criminal Intent, that I’ve watched entire marathons of though.
Yeah, ditto for me on both.
February 8th, 2008 at 10h00
That whole franchise is one of my favorites, too, but it’s only on the DVR in our bedroom, and I only watch (piecewise, at that) when the kids are sleeping and I’m folding laundry. (Kids sleeping = so they don’t see it ; folding laundry = so I don’t get too invested in it.)
It’s brilliant. But horrible. Good news is, usually the blood drenched stuff is only in the pre-opening credits section. The dialog of the rest is brutal, but not as visually graphic.
I would still NEVER let a kid watch it. (sorry about that dangling participle.)
February 8th, 2008 at 11h09
HBO has also added “rape” to its list of warnings. Oddly enough, they’ll often tack the warning onto shows were the episode doesn’t have any rape in it, but there might at some point be rape. There are shows that have never had rape in them, but that get the warning every episode.
February 8th, 2008 at 11h36
Maybe it was HBO in the first place, that’s why there was a question mark after Showtime. We had both at the same time, and I couldn’t remember which one had it. Can someone confirm whether or not Showtime has the warning? They are both owned by the same company, so I wouldn’t be surprised if both featured this warning.
February 10th, 2008 at 18h45
I expected a bigger reaction to “I would not let Niall memorize the lines the child actors on that show have to recite”, something like huge vocal agreement from the parents.
February 11th, 2008 at 10h43
I expected a bigger reaction to “I would not let Niall memorize the lines the child actors on that show have to recite”, something like huge vocal agreement from the parents.
When Chelsea was 11 or 12, she got to play a rape victim in Mulholland Falls. She always asserts that she had a good time, and got to meet some famous people, but I’ve occasionally wondered what her parents thought about it. This thought is usually quickly replaced by my annoyance that her character is listed in the credits as “Lolita”, when I strongly suspect that no one involved in the production has read a single word of Nabakov.