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crack_van2005-01-01 01:33 pm
tobiascharity.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2005-01-01 01:33 pm
Entry tags:
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Hi, I'm Tobias Charity, and I'll be driving the Law & Order crack van this month. (Yes, Law & Order has a fandom.) I'm gonna work backwards and kick it off with Law & Order: Criminal Intent and cover that for a week or so, and then move into the other spinoff, Special Victims Unit, and finish up the month with the original recipe. Posting three summaries at once would... possibly be *slightly* overwhelming. What you can expect from my by way of recs: I love slash, but this fandom is tiny, so there's not a ton of slash. The strengths of the writers lie in blending gen and het so that you don't even know you're reading het. Rather like the show, in fact. Except far better. So expect a little sprinkling of everything.
Guest summary by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
daygloparker, who wins on levels of obsessiveness I didn't know *existed*.
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Criminal Intent is the third installment in the great L&O franchise, taking a lead from older sibling SVU by focusing more on the cops than the lawyers. (Unlike the L&O: 1.0, it's all about arresting the crooks, not convicting them; if we ever DO see the inside of a courtroom, it's usually only in service of a plot twist, and not the Tried and True Formula.) Where SVU goes after rapists and child molesters, and 1.0 goes after anything resembling an actual ripped-from-the-headlines case, CI was billed as being "from the criminal's point of view." In other words, mixed in with scenes of our Valiant Detectives on the trail of a suspect, we actually SEE this suspect doing bad and covering up his crime and such. This is supposed
to tell us how close to the truth the detectives truly are, and serves as a way to allow the audience to sometimes know more than the detectives (a new spice in the L&O recipe).
And unlike its predecessors - which are both built around a sizeable ensemble whose purpose it is to jointly solve a crime (with, on occasion, a "focus" episode) - CI is anchored solely by its lead
detective, Robert Goren [Vincent D'Onofrio]. There is no revolving door of detectives and lawyers on CI, only Goren. And he's quite a quirky character, too. This is usually the definitive reason why L&O fans either like or hate this show.
The opening monologue of CI summarizes the show quite nicely: "In New York City's war on crime, the worst criminal offenders are pursued by the detectives of the Major Case squad. These are their stories."
Detectives Goren and Alex Eames [Kathryn Erbe] are two such detectives, but don't let the NYPD definition of the Major Case squad fool you - this is about just as much murder as the rest of the L&O installments. Besides, art theft gets sort of boring after a while.
Robert (Bobby) Goren: The reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes, or at the very least, he likes to think so. Goren always gets his (wo)man… in the professional sense, of course. Goren is, well, quirky. Some call it over-acting on D'Onofrio's part, but according to the show, it's not quirkiness, it's potentially schizophrenia. Oh, yes, you heard me right. See, apparently, his mother is currently committed for schizophrenia, so Goren constantly lives with the fear of inherited insanity. Needless to say, his childhood was hardly rosy, so maybe that explains his nearly complete lack of social skills. He doesn't play well with others, except for maybe Eames, though he (barely) made it through her maternity leave, which was actually sort of cute. (More about that below.)
Alexandra (Alex) Eames: A Watson to Goren's Holmes, except with womanly parts. God knows why she puts up with Goren's eccentricity, because she's everything he's not: rational, practical, nose-to-the-grindstone type of detective. Her father was a cop (and maybe even a dirty one at that, it's never quite clear - unless I've missed that resolution). She has a couple of (older?) brothers, and enjoys working on cars. She ain't no prissy lady, that's for sure. During the third season, Kathryn Erbe (the actress) announced that she was pregnant… so the writers had the brilliant idea of actually writing it into the storyline. I kid you not. No, she wasn't having Bobby's lovechild - apparently, she was a surrogate mother for her brother and his wife. Insert "why in God's name would they ask A LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENT to carry their child?" rant here.
Other people that might show up in fic…
Captain James Deakins: He's in charge of the Major Case squad. He doesn't really ever show up, except to ask how the case is going.
ADA Ron Carver: His job is to fight with Goren and claim that they have no case. This usually prompts Goren to execute an elaborate scheme to catch the suspect in a lie and force their hand and a confession. I've heard rumors of Goren/Carver fic. I'll believe it when I see it. (tobiascharity's note: You'll see it.)
Detective Bishop: Filled in as Goren's partner when Eames went on maternity leave. I honestly can't remember if she has a first name. About the only thing I do remember about her is that she prompted
Goren to remark that "Eames would have known." Told you the maternity leave storyline was vaguely cute.
Nicole Wallace (alias, Elizabeth Hitchens): A recurring, British, pain in Goren's arse. She enjoys causing trouble and conning him. NBC recently aired a choose-your-own-ending episode, and viewers voted for Wallace to live. I find her rather dull, to be honest.
So. Yeah. That's Criminal Intent. And it's probably one of the more character-driven installments of L&O, too.
--daygloparker
Some resources for Law & Order: CI fic (which may or may not include other incarnations)
LJ Communities
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
thursday100
thursday100plus
Archives (Note: There are no fandom-wide archives for Law & Order, so...these are recs sites that often rec L&O incarnation stories. With the exception of Recs Judicata, which *only* recs Law & Order stories.)
Bright Shiny Objects
The Glass Onion Archive
Recs Judicata (topcities is sometimes bitchy about deep-linking, so if that link doesn't work, try The Ham Sandwich and go from there. (The Ham Sandwich alone is *very* much worth checking out; it's a grammar resource along the lines of Kipler's Elements of Phyle and is an absolute must-read for anyone attempting L&O fic. Go!)
See you all later with some recs.
Guest summary by
daygloparker, who wins on levels of obsessiveness I didn't know *existed*.Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Criminal Intent is the third installment in the great L&O franchise, taking a lead from older sibling SVU by focusing more on the cops than the lawyers. (Unlike the L&O: 1.0, it's all about arresting the crooks, not convicting them; if we ever DO see the inside of a courtroom, it's usually only in service of a plot twist, and not the Tried and True Formula.) Where SVU goes after rapists and child molesters, and 1.0 goes after anything resembling an actual ripped-from-the-headlines case, CI was billed as being "from the criminal's point of view." In other words, mixed in with scenes of our Valiant Detectives on the trail of a suspect, we actually SEE this suspect doing bad and covering up his crime and such. This is supposed
to tell us how close to the truth the detectives truly are, and serves as a way to allow the audience to sometimes know more than the detectives (a new spice in the L&O recipe).
And unlike its predecessors - which are both built around a sizeable ensemble whose purpose it is to jointly solve a crime (with, on occasion, a "focus" episode) - CI is anchored solely by its lead
detective, Robert Goren [Vincent D'Onofrio]. There is no revolving door of detectives and lawyers on CI, only Goren. And he's quite a quirky character, too. This is usually the definitive reason why L&O fans either like or hate this show.
The opening monologue of CI summarizes the show quite nicely: "In New York City's war on crime, the worst criminal offenders are pursued by the detectives of the Major Case squad. These are their stories."
Detectives Goren and Alex Eames [Kathryn Erbe] are two such detectives, but don't let the NYPD definition of the Major Case squad fool you - this is about just as much murder as the rest of the L&O installments. Besides, art theft gets sort of boring after a while.
Robert (Bobby) Goren: The reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes, or at the very least, he likes to think so. Goren always gets his (wo)man… in the professional sense, of course. Goren is, well, quirky. Some call it over-acting on D'Onofrio's part, but according to the show, it's not quirkiness, it's potentially schizophrenia. Oh, yes, you heard me right. See, apparently, his mother is currently committed for schizophrenia, so Goren constantly lives with the fear of inherited insanity. Needless to say, his childhood was hardly rosy, so maybe that explains his nearly complete lack of social skills. He doesn't play well with others, except for maybe Eames, though he (barely) made it through her maternity leave, which was actually sort of cute. (More about that below.)
Alexandra (Alex) Eames: A Watson to Goren's Holmes, except with womanly parts. God knows why she puts up with Goren's eccentricity, because she's everything he's not: rational, practical, nose-to-the-grindstone type of detective. Her father was a cop (and maybe even a dirty one at that, it's never quite clear - unless I've missed that resolution). She has a couple of (older?) brothers, and enjoys working on cars. She ain't no prissy lady, that's for sure. During the third season, Kathryn Erbe (the actress) announced that she was pregnant… so the writers had the brilliant idea of actually writing it into the storyline. I kid you not. No, she wasn't having Bobby's lovechild - apparently, she was a surrogate mother for her brother and his wife. Insert "why in God's name would they ask A LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENT to carry their child?" rant here.
Other people that might show up in fic…
Captain James Deakins: He's in charge of the Major Case squad. He doesn't really ever show up, except to ask how the case is going.
ADA Ron Carver: His job is to fight with Goren and claim that they have no case. This usually prompts Goren to execute an elaborate scheme to catch the suspect in a lie and force their hand and a confession. I've heard rumors of Goren/Carver fic. I'll believe it when I see it. (
tobiascharity's note: You'll see it.)Detective Bishop: Filled in as Goren's partner when Eames went on maternity leave. I honestly can't remember if she has a first name. About the only thing I do remember about her is that she prompted
Goren to remark that "Eames would have known." Told you the maternity leave storyline was vaguely cute.
Nicole Wallace (alias, Elizabeth Hitchens): A recurring, British, pain in Goren's arse. She enjoys causing trouble and conning him. NBC recently aired a choose-your-own-ending episode, and viewers voted for Wallace to live. I find her rather dull, to be honest.
So. Yeah. That's Criminal Intent. And it's probably one of the more character-driven installments of L&O, too.
--
daygloparkerSome resources for Law & Order: CI fic (which may or may not include other incarnations)
LJ Communities
thursday100thursday100plusArchives (Note: There are no fandom-wide archives for Law & Order, so...these are recs sites that often rec L&O incarnation stories. With the exception of Recs Judicata, which *only* recs Law & Order stories.)
Bright Shiny Objects
The Glass Onion Archive
Recs Judicata (topcities is sometimes bitchy about deep-linking, so if that link doesn't work, try The Ham Sandwich and go from there. (The Ham Sandwich alone is *very* much worth checking out; it's a grammar resource along the lines of Kipler's Elements of Phyle and is an absolute must-read for anyone attempting L&O fic. Go!)
See you all later with some recs.