(no subject)

[moon_custafer]

Woke up feeling like I was coming down with a cold yesterday, so stayed home and watched a whole lot of episodes of Law & Order - Criminal Intent (Vincent d'Onofrio solves murders, acts manic); when you watch a lot of it at once you can see certain patterns - medical insurance fraud is a recurring plot device, as are various pathological/atypical mental states (after a few of these in a row, I commented that it should be called Oliver Sacks' Mystery Theatre); also, if there's a relatively well-known actor guest-starring, they usually turn out to be the villain.

Nevertheless, enough twists to not be totally predictable, and watching d'Onofrio (Whole Wide World, Full Metal Jacket, Men in Black) is always good fun. The abrupt endings are also kind of refreshing (no regular cast having drinks after work and discussing the Moral of the Story) as are the extremely basic back-stories for the main characters - Det. Eame's (late?) father was a cop; Det. Goren's mother was a librarian and is schizophrenic; that's pretty much all we're told.

Comments

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

A lot of C.I. does seem to have a subtext about which behaviours are acceptable and which aren't...ie, if Goren wasn't as borderline as he is, he wouldn't be as brilliant a detective. This comes out particularly hard in the Olivia D'Abo episodes, as it's meant to: Look, Moriarty! With Barbie hair and boobs!

OTOH, I'm with you on the refreshing lack of soap opera B-stories, especially compared to SVU--I don't think I've ever heard so much talk about "relationships" on a show that wasn't explicitly family-driven. As with D'Onofrio generally, in C.I., a little goes a long way.

Don't forget Bobby's brother

[(Anonymous)]

It seems that Bobby has an older brother who was the family "Star" and kind of uptight. Bobby use to tease him as a kid and tried to get him to "loosen" up, but then big brother became a compulsive gambler, and, after repeated efforts on Bobby's part to help him overcome the disease, he had to cut him off.
That's part of the reason why his Mom is so resentful of Bobby because his older brother was the favorite and she thinks that Bobby was jealous and resentful of him.
Poor Goren, that brilliant sexy man is stuck with a schizphrenic Mom, a deceased Dad who liked gambling,adulterous affairs and walked out on his family, and a brother who is a gambling addict and won't visit Mom.
No wonder Bobby is borderline at times!The killers and other criminals must seem less of a hassle dealing with than his own family!

Re: Don't forget Bobby's brother

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

Right. They've been talking a bit about he dad as the series goes on.

I also like that Goren and Eames are the least-slashy crime-solving team ever. They're both so asexual that when the actress playing Eames got pregnant they wrote it into the story as "Eames is acting as a surrogate mom for her sister," rather than try to suddenly claim she had had a relationship or an accident with somebody - I give them points for that.

If you're really into D'Onofrio...

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