Take The Deal
By Mitch Berg
D’Onofrio, Erbe and Bogosian are leaving “Law and Order: Criminal Intent”:
Here’s a mystery. What is “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” without stars Vincent D’Onofrio, Kathryn Erbe and Eric Bogosian?
“CSI: Manhattan?”
Seriously, the “Law and Order” franchise wrote the book on surviving cast turmoil – “LandO” has run a total of 26 actors though the six-person nucleus of its cast (DA, Senior and Junior ADAs, the Lieutenant, and the Senior and Junior Detectives) the show goes through more junior detectives than Brett Favre goes through teams.
But “Criminal Intent?”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, all three will exit during the upcoming ninth season. (Yes, it’s been that long. But really, who’s counting?)
Well, not I. I always liked the original LandO, and I always loved SVU (which, oddly, is still largely on its original cast) except for the brief run of madness and incipient PC while Marisky Hargitay was out on maternity leave, but CI usually left me a little unsatisfied, especially after it moved to USA. The stories seemed like throwbacks to traditional police drama. The only part I ever really cared about was the interplay between D’Onofrio and Erbe (and, for a season at least, Chris Noth and Annabella Sciorra).
Jeff Goldblum? It’s like “Monk” with more guns and lawyers.
September 28th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
I never did care for SVU, but I did enjoy a few versions of LandO. But I still like this Lando better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtKkyrZtUaM&NR=1
September 28th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Are you talking about that television thingy again? Why do they call it a “boob tube”?
September 28th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Because everything on it ever is lame, regardless of anything?
Whatever.
September 28th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Is that your final answer?
September 28th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
I could do without Eric Bogosian, whom to me is like listening to nails on a chalkboard (I’d much rather James Tierney had stayed longer, along with no-nonsense Cortney B. Vance.) But Vincent D’Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe? They have a working chemistry that can’t be duplicated.
D’Onofrio is arguably the best character actor of this generation, assuming the mantle after the passing of Ray Walston (My Favorite Martian, “Mr. Hand!” in Fast Times at Ridgemount High) and Vincent Schiavelli (also in Fast Times at Ridgemount High, but probably best known for helping Patrick Swayze’s character in Ghost.) He brought all his skill to the role as a Sherlock Holmes-type incapable of turning off his detective skills.
Erbe is the perfect complement, bringing considerable exposition skills to fill in story details. That’s why the interplay between them is so good.
Thought I’d bring a bit of seriousness to the thread as opposed to…well, you know.
September 29th, 2009 at 9:02 am
I have never watched an episode of LandO. I’ve never watched Desparate Houswive, either. The last sitcom I watched was That 70s Show back in the 90s.
Imagine all the places your mind can go.
September 29th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
For a while I was a pretty dedicated L&O fan to the point of watching the three series several times a day during my workout at the gym or when I was home in the evening. SVU was probably the best of the three series largely because of the chemistry between the cast with Criminal Intent being a distant third because of the cast who grated on my nerves every time I watched D’Onofrio overact (and I don’t mean in the charming and fun way Shatner and Hasselhoff overact) or Elbe serving as bland window dressing intended to make the male lead look good as most of the women on L&O do. Granted, I gave up on Criminal Intent about the middle of the second season so it’s likely after nine years they figured out how to do some things right.
The funny thing was, I quit watching L&O about the time I started law school when I realized how, contrary to the hype, utterly unrealistic it was. If they wanted to have a more realistic show it would be “Law and Order: Court of Appeals” showing Jack McCoy getting his convictions reversed in the hour following the main show. Moreover the “twists” got to be so predictable that it was hard to tell if I’d seen the episode before or if the writers had really gotten so lazy that they began recycling old plots.
Don’t get me wrong, while I don’t generally watch legal shows, there have been some that I’ve really enjoyed such as 100 Centre Street, Family Law, LA Law, JAG, and Picket Fences.
Oh and John Grisham is an overrated hack whose legal “thrillers” read like mad libs where he just changes the names of the attorney (who is supposed to be Grisham’s idealized version of himself) and the big bad law firm/corporation/government that gets brought down by a clever act of blackmail by the protagonist.