Are Nichols and Stevens Too Smart?

[Patcat]

www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2010/07/criminal-intents-class-problem/59177/

Patcat

[outerbankschick]

Between reading the episode comments and all of these articles, I'd say that they really did change the tone of the show. And it didn't work.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But then, what more could one expect from the likes of NBC...

[Patcat]

Except we really can't blame NBC for this, as much as I'd like to blame them for everything--the hot weather, the oil spill, the idiotic drivers I had to deal with this morning...

Patcat

[outerbankschick]

LOL!

Okay - USA/NBC and whichever the dope on the production side who let the stinky writing stand.

[jeffan]

I like this article as it came across as objective and raised some good points on the sense of place. New York is the framework in which Criminal Intent is intrinsically bound. As the author pointed out “maybe place isn’t supposed to matter anymore, now that the Law & Order franchise has crossed the pond to England and the continent to Los Angeles”, it does for me and this is why I’m not a fan of Law & Order UK even though there are some excellent actors in the cast. I think New York is one of the “stars” of the show.

However, as in cities all over the world, New York is a melting-pot (as already discussed on this board). People do move from place to place for whatever reasons, but one of the prime reasons is work, even transferring in their existing posts laterally or for promotion. My point is I do not find it unusual for two non-New Yorkers working in the NYPD. Nevertheless, I do understand the point the author is making:

“ Together, Nichols and Burrows are intensely cerebral. It's impossible to imagine them heading out to a sad little suburban mental facility to visit an ill mother, or brawling in a New York firehouse and lying about it. They're above it all, and that makes the show a little too clean. A show like that could work, but it's a different beast from Law & Order's Catholic fathers and depressed divorcees, officers who graduated from John Jay rather than Columbia. “

I may find it difficult to imagine this too and do not expect such a scenario. I believe the author does not mean it literally, but are “smart/class/clean” good words to use in her argument? Both detectives are officers in the Major Case Squad and, like their predecessors, are “smart” otherwise they wouldn’t be officers in this elite squad. As to “class”, why should this be an issue? Does any police department discriminate on social backgrounds? My difficulty with the word “clean” is how it is equated with “cerebral”. Even if you are high-brow, low-brow or, even, an in-between(er), it does not eliminate a detective from going to a crime scene in the seediest/swankiest part of the city!

The author concludes her article by writing:

“The introduction to every episode in every franchise declares of the detectives that "These are their stories." But they've been New York's, too. Even if Criminal Intent cares less about that second part of the equation, it's got to figure out its new detectives.”

I agree. Also, it took more than one season to figure out the stories of Goren and Eames, so it should be no surprise that Nichols and Burrows have yet to be “figured out”. I look forward to their stories placed squarely in whatever New York has to throw at them.

[Patcat]

I wonder if Nichols and Stevens are too much alike to be effective partners? And if Ross intended them to be partners when he recruited Stevens? One of the great strengths of Goren and Eames is that their differences made them effective partners, or as Goren said in SEMI-DETACHED, "We have complimentary skills."

I'm also afraid the writers are giving us too much information about Stevens and especially Nichols too quickly. After all, we didn't meet Goren's mother until the fifth season if I remember correctly (and I could be wrong).

Patcat

[outerbankschick]

I think the word the author should have used instead of "class" was pretentious. "Intensely cerebral" - or are they too intellectually full of themselves to connect with the audience?

Mind you, that is my impression from "Loyalty" and from watching all of S8. Nichols does have that air of "I know better than you do so don't bother trying to tell me anything..." He does his own thing. What I saw of Serena Stevens left me feeling "meh".

Once the show is in syndication and I have a chance to see some of the episodes, I may feel differently about her, but based on many of the comments I've read, I am not holding out much hope of that. What I am looking forward to is seeing MEM in her role as Callas, underused as she might have been.

[outerbankschick]

Patcat, it was S6 when we actually met Bobby's mother in The War At Home. Which, incidentally, I am watching right now on Oxygen.

[Patcat]

Thank you, OBC. I need to check my reference sources, like Bobby (g).

Patcat

[cigeisha]

I think Saffron Burrows was put in a very uncomfortable position as an actress. Not only did she go into this show already not being liked because she took over for Katie Erbe but looked at the lines she had. The writers gave her nothing to work with. I think Saffron Burrows is a better fit for SVU and Jeff Goldblum, well I wanted and expected more and never got it. It was like he was just going through the motions and in turn not giving Saffron Burrows anything to work with. I honestly think if Burrows was paired with someone different her it would have be better.