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Post by goreneames on Mar 30, 2005 11:39:17 GMT -5
I'm a big fan of both SVU and CI, but I don't ever "merge the methods of SVU and CI when watching either show" as NicoleMarie does. They are so different that sometimes the only similarity I see between the two shows is the "chu-chungs" between scenes! As much as I enjoy SVU, I don't think Shibboleth would've worked as well as an SVU episode. Stabler and Bensen's focus would've been on Keith's ex-girlfriend. The one he injured trying to put her neck in a noose. They'd want to explore her trauma and the trauma experienced by the dead victims and the woman, Cassandra, who almost got killed by Jake. They'd also have been more focussed on the origins of Jake's murderous sex fetish. But all that would take the focus off Keith, the son whose father's evil imprinted itself on his psyche and tormented him for nearly thirty years. That was the heart of this story as presented on CI. And it's something I've never really seen before, so I found it fascinating. I've seen lots of cop shows about victims of sexual assault and about what makes serial killers tick, but this was new. I don't mean to downplay the trauma experienced by the girlfriend and Cassandra and the dead women. It's just that theirs weren't the stories being told. The story was Keith's, and Goren is a character who's uniquely well-suited to drawing out and unravelling the mystery of his story. SVU would've taken a more conventional story route by dealing with the readily identifiable victims. CI took an unconventional story route by dealing with an almost invisible victim of Jake's evil. I'm only speculating about what SVU might've done with this material. And, actually, I'm glad I can only speculate about it. Just my take.
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Post by LOCIfan on Mar 30, 2005 11:44:48 GMT -5
As for comparing the episode between the two series, they would interprate the same story two different ways. The elements in this one reminded more of SVU style than cerebral clinical intent style. Sirenna, I'm afraid I misinterpretted what you were saying based on the above quote. Sorry about that. I referred, in my post, to "Goren and/or LOCI" because I was noting a similarity between what both you and NicoleMarie seemed to be saying (and she was referring specifically to Goren, while you were talking more generally about LOCI).
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Post by LOCIfan on Mar 30, 2005 11:50:58 GMT -5
As for your comparison above, I afraid I don't understand why it is important to you. Why compare the two at all, either the paintings or the series? Why not just be open to the fact that time and space and opportunity give rise to different, (some might say, better or worse I guess) interpretations?! Sirenna, Again, a misunderstanding. The point of my comparison was that it seems to me rather irrelevant what SHIBBOLETH might've looked like as an SVU episode, because it's not. It's a CI episode. And I made the point in response to your statatment: "I'm with NicoleMarie in that it [SHIBBOLETH] would have been better as an SVU episode." I was only asking why you were interested in comparing the series because, to me, it IS irrelevant. Just as irrelevant (to me) as saying that da Vinci's Mona Lisa would've been better if painted by Picasso... There's no point in it. And I still don't see the point in suggesting this episode would or wouldn't be better on SVU.
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Post by Sirenna on Mar 30, 2005 12:20:29 GMT -5
I don't think we ever got to the point of comparing the two since, yes, this is and always will be an LOCI episode!
The similarities I saw, and maybe Nicolemarie saw (but i can't speak for her) in why this was less loci and maybe closer to svu, were in the lack of unravelling exactly why the father and son were as they are. No reason is still a reason but even this wasn't really explored in the show. The graphic, repeated depiction, as well as the detailed description of how to slowly choke some one was more like SVU's direction -- a bit gratuitous.
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Post by Sirenna on Mar 30, 2005 12:31:41 GMT -5
In Death Roe, Beatrice was portrayed in miscontrued light. SVU would hasve duelved in her actions and why she behaved the way she did. CI did not do any of this. Instead, they chose to make the incest subtle, which in turn confused and angered people. Death Roe is a perfect example of why it should have been a SVU show. I, of course, am in the minority in my views. hehehehe See now this is why I think Death Roe makes for a very good LO:ci episode. We see the crime, including the 'why' of it which is always about the human(e) factor. Goren delves into the psyche but the show doesn't dwell on the good and the bad or the 'worth' of the character. That is up to us. The main consensus of those who didn't like the way Beatrice was portrayed seemed to be because of the 'goodness' of her character as a victim. She didn't come across as sympathetic enough (which as I've said, I don't agree.) The reasons why I watch LOCI over the other series is that at the end the show generates a lot of questions for me to think over. When they start to answer them for me, I'm left thinking what was the point of watching.
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Post by Metella on Mar 30, 2005 13:08:08 GMT -5
The aspect I find I am mulling over in this episode is ....
The son strikes me as a decent, sensitive guy; if he hadn't been exposed and tramatized by that picture and the knowledge that his father was a killer ...
I think he would NOT have developed any tendencies toward inflicting and/or seeing pain in his partners. The catch is; if he were not a caring sensitive young boy; it wouldn't have affected him so deeply? But being so caring, then obsessing on that picture and knowledge of the murder .... he was Hating himself for deriving pleasure from pain.
He had been tortured himself until his father's statement let him off the DNA hook & perhaps opened the way for him to become that decent man he was growing up to be.
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Post by goreneames on Mar 30, 2005 13:15:33 GMT -5
The graphic, repeated depiction, as well as the detailed description of how to slowly choke some one was more like SVU's direction -- a bit gratuitous. No, not gratuitous, because there was a story point involved. The exact method of strangulation was important because it was (as Carver pointed out) unique to Jake's M.O. So the fact that Keith had behaved similarly, that he had the same "sexual hard-wiring" as his father, was an essential element of telling Keith's story. In fact, it seemed Criminal Intent went out of its way not to be gratuitous by doing the re-enactment on a dummy that was both asexual and only schematically resembled a human being. As for the photographs of Jake's victims, that also served a story point in that it showed that Jake did not require his victims to wear white bras and panties whereas Keith was fixated on white because it mirrored the image he recalled from the photograph. That was also an essential element of Keith's story. Criminal Intent has used graphic crime scene photos in the past. And has even, on occasion, shown the murders in more graphic fashion than was done here. I'm thinking of Shandeh, where the woman was murdered in the car. In that episode, we saw the woman fighting and struggling to escape her killer before she died. That was extremely graphic. In Cold Comfort we saw the killer slice the senator's daughter's vein and subsequently saw her in a huge pool of blood. That, also, was pretty graphic. And then there were all the body parts in In the Dark. The list goes on and on. But at least in this episode the graphic stuff served the story. Television is a visual medium, so a certain amount of graphic imagery is kind of inevitable in a show about murderers.
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Post by goreneames on Mar 30, 2005 13:31:25 GMT -5
The aspect I find I am mulling over in this episode is .... The son strikes me as a decent, sensitive guy; if he hadn't been exposed and tramatized by that picture and the knowledge that his father was a killer ... I think he would NOT have developed any tendencies toward inflicting and/or seeing pain in his partners. The catch is; if he were not a caring sensitive young boy; it wouldn't have affected him so deeply? But being so caring, then obsessing on that picture and knowledge of the murder .... he was Hating himself for deriving pleasure from pain. He had been tortured himself until his father's statement let him off the DNA hook & perhaps opened the way for him to become that decent man he was growing up to be. Yes, that's what I found so interesting about this episode. I think there were two important time frames for Keith. The first was when he, as a seven year old kid, saw the picture and was fascinated by what it depicted. As a seven year old, he wouldn't have associated it with sexual pleasure -- yet. But the image "imprinted" itself on his brain so that he thought of it often and, as he hit adolescence and sexual awakening, he found the image of a woman tied up in her bra and panties stimulating, sexually. All this, of course, was before he realized that the photograph was of a woman about to be, or already murdered by his father. The second important time frame is when he sees the picture of the girl in the newspaper and realizes she's the woman from the photograph. That, I think is the point at which the torment started. Because he already finds himself sexually aroused by the image, and because he thinks that means he's just like his dad. His dad is the one who (around the same time) made a big point of how Keith is his flesh and blood, etc... and that there's nothing Keith can do to wipe that out. Keith thinks it's what he's inherited from his dad, that he can't control it (like his dad) and it becomes the source of deep shame/guilt and torment. In many important ways, Keith never evolves past that adolescent kid with the misconceptions about his sexual likes and dislikes. Also, I'm not sure he would've had to be an overly sensitive seven year old in order to have been so impacted by that photograph. It was probably enough that it was so bizarre. So unlike anything he'd ever seen before, and so clearly not the kind of picture he was supposed to be looking at. That, combined with the fact that it was something his dad hid in the car would be enough to make a big impression on a little kid. That was my take, anyway. I'm still mulling though...
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Post by goreneames on Mar 30, 2005 13:38:57 GMT -5
The similarities I saw, and maybe Nicolemarie saw (but i can't speak for her) in why this was less loci and maybe closer to svu, were in the lack of unravelling exactly why the father and son were as they are. Well, here's where we saw it differently again. I agree that this wasn't a story about unravelling why Frank was the way he was. But I completely disagree that Goren didn't delve into and unravel why Keith was the way he was. That was the story. And it's what I found so fascinating. As I mentioned above, I've seen lots of shows about unravelling what makes a serial killer tick, but I've never seen a story about how a serial killer's evil can spill over into the psyche of a small child and stunt the emotional growth of a son torn between wanting to identify with his dad, and recognizing that his dad is evil. I thought Goren did a great job of delving into the psychology of that. There's a lot of food for thought in this episode!
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Post by LOCIfan on Mar 30, 2005 13:58:09 GMT -5
I don't think we ever got to the point of comparing the two since, yes, this is and always will be an LOCI episode! Nope, I don't think we did. I prefer, as you said, to "just be open to the fact that time and space and opportunity give rise to different ... interpretations" and will leave the speculation as to what SVU might've done differently with the material to others.
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Post by NicoleMarie on Mar 30, 2005 14:05:30 GMT -5
I'm a big fan of both SVU and CI, but I don't ever "merge the methods of SVU and CI when watching either show" as NicoleMarie does. I sometimes merge the methods of CI and SVU while watching the shows. I almost immediately suspected incest because of what I had learned from SVU about victims and how victims react. There have been comments that SVU is overwrought and histronic but, SVU is very educational. (To me anyway.) I applied what I had learned from SVU to Death Roe. My pre-knowledge from SVU gave me a greater depth of understanding than I normally would have.
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Post by NicoleMarie on Mar 30, 2005 14:13:34 GMT -5
The point of my comparison was that it seems to me rather irrelevant what SHIBBOLETH might've looked like as an SVU episode, because it's not. It's a CI episode. And I made the point in response to your statatment: "I'm with NicoleMarie in that it [SHIBBOLETH] would have been better as an SVU episode." I was only asking why you were interested in comparing the series because, to me, it IS irrelevant. It is relevant to me because I think SVU would have done a much better job with those shows and I tried to explain why. I tried to use SVU to show the weaknesses in the depths of both Death Roe and Shibboleth. I don't think I succeeded but, I tried very hard anyway. hehehehe ;D
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Post by NicoleMarie on Mar 30, 2005 14:15:16 GMT -5
The similarities I saw, and maybe Nicolemarie saw (but i can't speak for her) in why this was less loci and maybe closer to svu, were in the lack of unravelling exactly why the father and son were as they are. No reason is still a reason but even this wasn't really explored in the show. The graphic, repeated depiction, as well as the detailed description of how to slowly choke some one was more like SVU's direction -- a bit gratuitous. Yes, I totally agree with this!
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Post by NicoleMarie on Mar 30, 2005 14:19:20 GMT -5
I agree that this wasn't a story about unravelling why Frank was the way he was. But I completely disagree that Goren didn't delve into and unravel why Keith was the way he was. That was the story. And it's what I found so fascinating. I also didn't see this as a LOCI show because Goren used more standard procedure police work rather than his brillant profiling. He did not really figure out the problem with the son. Once, they found the old murders in the archives, then Goren knew. This was a simplied LOCI for me. The procedures they used were just like SVU. (Yep, I went there again! ) And the graphic-ness was unusual.
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Post by NicoleMarie on Mar 30, 2005 14:24:30 GMT -5
No, not gratuitous, because there was a story point involved. Criminal Intent has used graphic crime scene photos in the past. Television is a visual medium, so a certain amount of graphic imagery is kind of inevitable in a show about murderers. CI was more graphic than usual. It was, as I saw on another board, CSI-lite! CI can be graphic but, lite-graphic. It is usually no where near as graphic as SVU or CSI. It was rather startling for me that CI went there as they had not before. I wonder why they decided to go there this ssaeon? And I said, CI has been more creepy and graphic this year!
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