Law and Order Criminal Intent Overhyped

For the past two months whenever I've been at home watching my Law & Order: SVU or CI, or Monk marathons on USA I've seen the commercials for the new season of Criminal Intent and gotten progressively more and more stoked.

Not only was the crazy-ass detective Goren (played by the equally crazy-ass amazing Vincent D'Onofrio) going to be back, but Jeff Goldblum was joining the cast!
Look at him, he looks like a wily detective - this had awesomeness all over it.

So, I patiently waited for the ability to program my DVR and watch this amazing debut. To psych myself up I watched the entire marathon of Criminal Intent all day on Sunday. While watching though the commercials seemed to hype Goldblum less, and less...

I still wanted to watch though, because they promised it would be disturbing. Although I hate scary movies, I adore creepy stories of killers being brought to justice - I'm aware that's a little odd.
Anyway, I deciced I was going to DVR Family Guy and watch Criminal Intent live because I had waited so long for it's triumpant return.

What a f'in let down.

It was a straight forward story, with a little bit of sexual abuse that SVU would've handled much better, and all-in-all a giant disappointment. It didn't even have a really break-down crazy interrogation scene. Boooooring.

I should've watched Family Guy instead. That had a better legal thriller afoot. The medical marijuana episode was way more epic than the Criminal Intent premier. Which proves again, I should go with my teenage viewing instinct and save my adult contemporary viewing for a rainy day.

Let's hope next week's episode is more Goldblumier, or even a little Goldblumy.

SVU Marathons Hijack My Life

It happens every weekend, almost without fail.

I will plan my quality time with TV. There’s the hours allotted to a lovely slow wake up lounging in front of my roommates orgasmically large plasma TV.

On the couch I usually view DVR’d programs that I’ve been looking forward to. I get oh-so-comfy as I rub the sleep from my eyes. After my scheduled programs have completed, that’s when I take a gander at the channel listing.

And that’s when they get me.

It’s either USA Networks, Bravo, or TNT that is airing them,

And you can never have just one after you watch them.

That’s right folks,

Law & Order marathons.

I can take about two hours of plain old Law & Order.

I will go about 4 episodes deep of Criminal Intent (To be honest, I find most of the Criminal Intent marathons run short for me because they have a heavy hand on rotating in the same episodes. This is most likely because there are some episodes that are really not worth repeating of Criminal Intent, and it’s a young show. In a couple of years though, I’ll probably be able to take more episodes. That Vincent Dinafrio* is a trip!)

Special Victims Unit though, it takes hold of me.

I have spent entire 24 hour periods watching this show. Sometimes I don’t even mean to keep watching, they just keep coming and every story is more fucked up than Maury Povich’s wildest guests on crime sprees.

Not only is the story telling compelling, but it’s the only one of the Law & Order that really gets you committed to the characters. Since they deal with the most horrific crimes, they get background stories. It’s not as invasive as cop shows such as NYPD Blue, but you have a good idea the reasons they take on the sex crimes.

The best cop on the cast is the most experienced NBC police officer, Detective Munch, from the Baltimore unit in Homicide, otherwise known as Richard Belzer. His ability to attach himself from the crime and have witty jabs and off kilter conspiracy theories is always a refreshing injection into their dark stories.

But let's be honest, when it comes down to it, the best part has to be this guy: