|
Post by Observer2 on Apr 28, 2005 19:02:36 GMT -5
Probably as a tie-in to the crossover Techguy posted about, according to posters on another board, Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni [any misspellings are mine] will appear on The View on Tuesday, May 3.
That article was hilarious – especially the quote from Meloni. I think I’d like him a whole lot better than I like the ironically named Stabler.
Finn is the only detective on that show I really enjoy watching. Well, Munch is funny, but I can’t quite believe him as a cop. Huang has seemed okay, what I’ve seen of him. I don’t watch it enough to have gotten a very good sense of him. I was impressed with one episode where he went “undercover” as a Chinese immigrant looking for work for his sister. On the other hand, I was *not* impressed with the writing in the episode where we actually saw him in a session with Stabler. Most of it was like a illustration of how to avoid establishing any hint of therapeutic rapport with someone like Stabler. But I blame that on the writers, not on Wong.
|
|
|
Post by domenicaflor on Apr 28, 2005 19:09:07 GMT -5
Guest stars: Alfred Molina as a serial rapist, and Angela Lansbury as his wealthy protective mother. Now THAT'S a crossover I plan to watch. I will enjoy seeing Molina and Lansbury as guest stars. D.
|
|
|
Post by Techguy on Apr 28, 2005 22:55:53 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Techguy on Sept 1, 2005 1:57:20 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by janetcatbird on Sept 6, 2005 17:03:58 GMT -5
My Dad heard part of this interview with Ice-T the other day and mentioned that I might want to listen to it when I had a chance. Apparently NPR's "Fresh Air" program focused on hip-hop last week. THe conversation itself (a good twenty minutes) is over ten years old, long before SVU, but I thought it very interesting and fun to listen to. (Some of his comments about pimps and hos made me deja vu--Marx said the same thing, as I just read in Philosophy of Religion--but I digress.) I've posted the link and the online blurb, but no transcript, sorry. Besides, from there you can see related links. www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4824690&ft=1&f=13August 31, 2005 · Born Tracy Marrow, Ice-T is one of the original gangster rappers, of whom Greg Knot of The Chicago Tribune wrote: "Ice-T is that rare gangster rapper who leads with his brain instead of his gun or his crotch." Ice-T's 1992 song "Cop Killer,” performed with his heavy-metal band Body Count, landed him at the center of a controversy about gangsta rap -- was it a legitimate form of expression or incendiary hate-mongering? His latest album is The Pimp Penal Code. Ice-T continues to perform as a musician but has also cultivated a successful acting career. His roles include a policeman on the TV show Law and Order Special Victims Unit and parts in the films New Jack City, Trespass and Ricochet. (This interview originally aired May 1, 1992.)
|
|
|
Post by Sirenna on Sept 6, 2005 17:30:50 GMT -5
Chris Meloni was seriously sexy on Oz - L&0's version of everyone else's 10th year reunion. He was able to be multi-dimensional; Smart, cold, compassionate, the scene lead or supporting actor, in a way he doesn't get to be on SVU
|
|
|
Post by janetcatbird on Sept 6, 2005 18:55:33 GMT -5
Yes, there are several casual fans of SVU (if it's on, especially after "Monk", and there's nothing else to watch). The prime rationale for many being that "Yeah, Stabler's hot." I personally prefer Munch and Fin.
Missed Oz, suppose I ought to try to find it at some point. As to SVU, if there are episodes I really enjoy I chase down the title and wait for a rerun to tape. Tonight NBC shows one with Marlee Matlin ("Parts"), so I am definitely recording that one.
--Catbird
|
|
|
Post by Sirenna on Sept 6, 2005 19:08:25 GMT -5
Actually I didn't say Stabler was hot. I said Chris Meloni in Oz was.
Sexy is not a word I'd use on SVU - it's got really twisted connotations considering the series subject matter. Personally I think all the characters (not the actors) on SVU need shrink therapy. Their work has messed them up.
|
|
|
Post by janetcatbird on Sept 6, 2005 22:14:50 GMT -5
Forgot to mention that on one of Ice-T's other NPR interviews he does spend a couple minutes talking about SVU. (You should see a link to that article on the webpage I listed some posts above.) I believe it's the one about "New Jack City" anniversary DVD or something. Ah, here we go. www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4815101"August 25, 2005 · Rapper and actor Ice-T, one of the pioneers of the "gangsta rap" genre, now has a regular role as an undercover cop on the NBC crime drama Law and Order. Born Tracy Marrow, the rapper got his big acting break in the film New Jack City. He talks about his acting career and the film's 15th-anniversary release. Note: Segment contains language some may find offensive." END BLURB SVU is only a minute or two near the end of the interview. Not terribly in-depth, just working with Richard Belzer. "On the show they call us the Men in Black"--sometimes you need comic relief and they're the ones cracking jokes. Besides, as Ice-T said, you want someone to rough the perps up, and they'll do it. I can't remember the exact quotes, but coming after a discussion of his role as an (undercover) cop in the movie it was neat to hear. And as to rough language, I don't recall anything worse than one beep and a couple of n------s in a clip from the movie, but don't wanna catch people off guard. --Catbird PS: I'm not a regular enough viewer of SVU to really say what's happened to the characters over time, I catch USA reruns and just mentioned the opinions of 20 year old college co-eds, and we all know what those are worth...she says with a sly grin. I enjoy Munch and Fin as characters, especially when they peel back enough layers to see behind the wisecracks and street cred. Marlee Matlin's appearances, in particular for Munch, as well as "Legacy". (Munch brings the little girl a stuffed lion, since "Lion King" was her favorite, and the end fade-out is him at her bedside reading "Oh the Places You'll Go".) I keep missing Fin's big moments, but I'm keeping an eye out. At least I saw the episode where his son visits him in the hospital, to have the rest of the hour go to Fin tracking down first a girl he knew from his undercover days, then her baby. ("Haunted", I think is the title.) As to Benson and Stabler--yeah, they need some serious counseling. Stabler gets old; Meloni is a fine actor in that part but the writing seems to be second verse same as the first. Benson is alright, but it's not one of those "Oh my gosh she's terrific" type things. Not for me anyways.
|
|
|
Post by Sirenna on Sept 6, 2005 22:58:37 GMT -5
I get the feeling that personal angst getting in the way of solving the case is going to be a fixture with the logan partnership on season five. It's got to be how logan and his partner distinguish themselves from Goren and eames'. I watch LO:ci because the characters are involved but never to the extent they absorb the warped aspects of the villians they chase. Nooooooooh! I hope I'm imagining this but I don't think I am.
|
|
|
Post by janetcatbird on Sept 21, 2005 10:56:41 GMT -5
Was I the only one who got seriously hacked that Munch NEVER APPEARED in the opener last night?!?!?! Oh well, I liked Cragen's concerns and the alcoholic analogy, I also liked Huang's scenes to try to prep Elliott: "Well, I talked to the idiot..." But no Munch?!?! Congrats to Tamara Tunie for getting in the credits, so where the heck was she? Oh well, it's not like we see Rogers in every Mothership, so I can live with that.
I've gotten into the reruns on USA--taping the ones that seem to be very good and significant-- as if I needed any other distractions from homework. Actually, I've realized that if I know "Hey, Law & Order comes on at 10:00 and I'd like to watch" I'll actually work on stuff so I feel OK about the indulgence.
|
|
|
Post by janetcatbird on Oct 4, 2005 22:56:01 GMT -5
"911", Ehh...I thought Hargitay did a decent job with the phone scenes, although the crying at the first hang-up was a little premature. Ice-T was way too melodramatic during the early traffic stops, but thankfully he settled down a bit. More Munch!! While I hated his "That's supposed to be funny" bit about Spamalot tickets--you'd think after all these years he'd know when to crack wise and when to pipe down--at least the character was cautiously sympathetic. I've always liked Cragen.
What was up with the camerawork? The aerial shot of Munch talking on the phone in the street was weird, and the tight close-ups on Hargitay's face. I wasn't thinking "Oh, what a great dramatic reaction" but rather "Why the heck won't my mascara/eyeliner go on that smoothly?"
If Benson was so upset and near hysterics after Richard got the phone, would you really want her behind the wheel of the car? While you certianly understand her being worked up in this case, had I been Tutuola I would have made her get in the passenger seat.
SPOILER:
What a wimpout on the ending. Maybe not impossible, but highly improbable and just too darned convenient. Especially confusing given the credit of "The voice of Maria..." (although I must admit the little girl actress did a nice job, maybe a bit pouty at times but given the script and the fact that Maria was 9 years old, it certainly wasn't awful). She should have died--never thought you'd hear that from Catbird "I wanna see the baby!" the Sentimentalist!
--Catbird
|
|
|
Post by erotica on Oct 4, 2005 23:43:11 GMT -5
SVU is leader of the L&O pack: Click HereSpecial Victims Unit is the new leader of the Law & Order pack By Kate Aurthur The New York Times Posted October 4 2005 On a summer day on the set of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in North Bergen, N.J., the cast was shooting new opening credits. The two leads, Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay, stood as part of the eight-person ensemble, staring intensely at the camera. Trying to snap the group into character, Ted Kotcheff, an executive producer who was directing the scene, yelled, "All you perps out there, you're in danger from us!" The actors broke up with laughter. Kotcheff tried a different approach, thanking "these eight wonderful people who made it possible for us to go into a seventh season." Nearby, a Doritos-eating crew member whispered, "I thought it was the eighth season." Well, with three different Law & Order series on the NBC schedule, it can be hard to keep track -- Wednesday's episode will be the 600th of the combined franchise. But last season, something unexpected happened: Special Victims Unit -- which focuses on sexually based crimes, and is nicknamed SVU -- became the most popular of the trio. According to Nielsen Media Research, it drew an average audience of 13.46 million, one of only two scripted NBC series to finish the season in the top 20. (ER was the other.) And it was the only show on the beleaguered network to increase its audience from the previous year. Its seventh season has also begun well: 16.8 million viewers watched its premiere on Sept. 20. Neal Baer, the executive producer who has run SVU since its second year, described how the show has evolved into what he calls "a hybrid procedural." He compared its formula to those of other workplace dramas like L.A. Law, and ER, which he helped write and produce for six seasons. "You're going to solve a crime every week, you're going to be taken through a twisty, turny whodunit," he said. "But you're also going to learn about the characters just a tiny bit -- or maybe a whole lot. It's not just the facts, and it's not a soap." It took a while to find that balance. As designed by Dick Wolf, the creator of all things Law & Order, SVU was meant to be much more character driven than the flagship show. He wrote the pilot episode himself for its debut in fall 1999, and included so many personal details about the two lead detectives, Elliot Stabler (Meloni) and Olivia Benson (Hargitay), that Law & Order viewers who were used to a don't ask/don't tell approach were jarred; it was like seeing your therapist in the steam room. Its early plots even involved the home life of Stabler, whose wife and four children were also characters. "We stopped doing that about six episodes in -- even though we'd built nice big sets -- because it just stopped the storytelling cold," Wolf said. By the beginning of Season 2, Wolf had gone through two executive producers. In October 2000, he hired Baer. "Neal put his stamp on it," he said. "He moved it into a much more intellectually fruitful area." In her office on the set, Hargitay discussed the early missteps in trying to "find the show's voice." She said: "There was a concern: Is it going to be the rape-of-the-week show? That's when Neal came along and elevated it." Criminal procedurals have become an epidemic, and shows like CSI have increased the amount of gore on television. After a third-season SVU episode "where there was a woman tied up to a lamppost and had her foot cut off," Baer said he decided "not to do anything more that was really violent." Pointing at CSI, as well as Fox's medical show House, he said: "We don't go inside anybody's body, through any orifice. You don't see blood gushing out of people or heads cut off." Baer has also increasingly relied on the strengths of his actors, particularly Meloni and Hargitay. "It's all about the victims and Mariska and Chris' reaction to it -- Mariska's compassion and Chris' abhorrence," he said. "And the two together make a compelling stew." This fall, SVU is going up against ABC's Boston Legal and, starting tonight, CBS's Close to Home, a new crime show from CSI originator Jerry Bruckheimer. Baer will counter by tackling matters like hate crimes and HIV among gay crystal meth users. "We don't look to other shows -- we try to be faithful to the kinds of stories the Law & Orders tell," he said. And the SVU characters will inch along as well. (Last season, Meloni's character began approaching a mental breaking point when his marriage ended -- in an SVU way, that is, one minuscule hint at a time.) "You just start to put together the pieces, as you would in a normal life, in your workplace," Baer said. "You just have to watch it, because you never know."
|
|
|
Post by NikkiGreen on Oct 5, 2005 1:19:37 GMT -5
Catbird, all I have to say is that Maria must have had a real *magical* cell phone because it sure kept working for a long time on a low battery[/sarcasm]
Oh...and that Olivia needs to learn how to do CPR properly.
|
|
|
Post by janetcatbird on Oct 5, 2005 10:36:50 GMT -5
I can't comment on the CPR, but I think the script was kinda lousy for Maria. Maybe I've been watching too many crime shows/traumatized victims, but if a child had been help captive for a porn guy for some time, would she be so petulant? She was near tears when she called on the phone, but then she got sulky when Olivia's "voice is angry". Wouldn't a girl in her circumstances think she had made Olivia mad? The actress can only do so much with what they give her.
Erotica, thanks for the article! Although it's kinda sad that SVU is the go-to show for the brand, it's not like the others have to rely on it. I wonder how much of the SVU viewership is drawn by the sensationalized aspects (not that they're exploitative, but they do push buttons) or to drool over Meloni/Hargitay. I started with the original, got into Criminal Intent, and while I've recently begun to watch SVU I don't think it'll ever be my favorite.
--Catbird
|
|