Do you *know* how many white vans there are in London?
I'm choosing to take that as an underhanded Spooks joke, even if I'm well aware that that's stretching it (even for me).
In other news: ugh; finally, Canada. Jeez. Only 2 more to go and you don't suck anymore! (ITV, you who actually owns these episodes and is withholding airing them in amazing HD glory - we are not even on speaking terms. You are just dumb, and I'm pretending you don't exist. P.S., thank you for nonetheless giving us a Series 2 [to be aired, when, 2012? um, will the world exist then? oh well], kisses!)
First of all: MAJORLY WEIRD watching these after having seen 1x12 and 1x13. It's kind of like having the canon I created for the gap between 1x07 and 1x12 erased and replaced with Reality. i.e., it's exactly that. This both !!!! and :(, for the record.
1x08: "Samaritan"
MATT DEALS WITH POST-1X07 BY ASKING ALESHA HOW SHE'S DOING TWENTY TIMES A DAY, WHICH SHE GRACIOUSLY REBUFFS LIKE ALL THE TIME BECAUSE I HAVE TO IMAGINE SHE IS SICK OF PEOPLE ASKING HOW SHE IS DOING.
JAMES DEALS BY NOT ASKING AND LET HER LOSE HERSELF IN WORK.
Oh... them.
1x09: "Hidden"
ngl, as excited as I was to see "Bitter Fruit" get the UK treatment (S6! SECRET AFFAIR SEASON!) - I WAS SORT OF, WELL, OKAY I WAS HELLA DISAPPOINTED. Like, first of all - on my top ten list of favorite L&O episodes. It's got that lady from Little Shop as the mom, and there's A SHOOTING IN THE COURT ROOM (which Jack sardonically mocks Claire later for as a "near death" experience - Season 6, you are fantastic). So the fact that, because it's England, the shooting mid-arraignment has to become a knifing in the post-arraignment press conference (and a strange, blurry, nearly anti-climatic one at that).... boy, I don't know. It really lacked the shock of a gun shot interrupting Claire mid-sentence and spraying blood over her, IS ALL.
I also don't know what I think about the changes they made to the mother character in general - from a person in the US version who does it for custody and whose motivations can be reduced down to her final exchange with Jack ("I loved her!" / "But... you hated your husband more.")... to this, I don't know, vaguely sympathetic person? Like, I'm not saying it's bad. Considering the fact that since I've seen this episode SEVERAL TIMES I recognized whole scenes that were lifted from the original 6x01 episode word-for-word, that they took the time to tweak anything is a novel and awesome thing. I just think it's interesting that whereas the trademark of Old School L&O (and maybe Law & Order in general) is this sense of almost - do I want to call it non-judgment for someone's illegal activity? Maybe. The brilliance of Law & Order - at least the original - is this grey area they're sometimes able to balance where, in the final Reveal scene, you might not agree with whatever illegal activity the Guilty Party has engaged in, but you understand its motivation (whatever "understand" means). Yes, I'm even talking about those episodes that have to do with hate crimes. For ten seconds, you see something in a character that is true - it might be awful, it might be fucking awful and ignorant and TOTALLY AWFUL, but it's also true to that character.
So - I don't know. This slight distinction between "I think that my husband was out to get me, so I kidnapped our daughter" and "I just wanted to kidnap my daughter to get money so we could run away I'd be a Good Mom" makes sense to me? I guess the difference is that, in "Bitter Fruit," Jack McCoy uses the law to go THAT'S NICE, ACTUALLY YOU ARE GOING TO JAIL ANYWAY; whereas in 1x09, James Steele uses the law simply to say UM NO YOU ARE WRONG. There's a difference. Really.
Um. On the other hand, IN TERMS OF THE ACTUAL UK EPISODE (NOT TO BE A CRAZY PERSON), it's really great that as much as James is totally reacting as a father to Kailey Gaines' crime, um, I don't think I'm stretching much to see him reacting as a guy who knows a girl named Alesha who probably desperately wanted to walk up to the dude who raped her two episodes ago and stab him dead (but didn't, because That's Wrong) (is it?). Like - in the show in my mind, James carries around a whole hell of a lot of guilt about not being able to convict that dude. I suspect that perceived guilt is 65-70% supported by canon (PLUS BY CHEATING AND KNOWING ABOUT THE 1X12 ICE SKATING DATE).
Here is something that is going to sound really awful: man, changing that episode from the Olivet character to Alesha is probably going to mean epic important things down the line, yes? For one thing, the only time an American character has been involved in a crime was that time CLAIRE DIED (and thus, her involvement was only after the fact; please see: Jack's two seasons of alcoholism and prosecutorial misconduct).
I AM STILL ANXIOUS TO DISCOVER HOW WE GET TO THE DATING LAWYER SPIES THAT JAMES & ALESHA ARE IN 1X12, BY THE WAY.
Also, happy birthday, Fox Mulder.
And for the record, I absolutely nominated L&O UK for Yuletide.
In other news: ugh; finally, Canada. Jeez. Only 2 more to go and you don't suck anymore! (ITV, you who actually owns these episodes and is withholding airing them in amazing HD glory - we are not even on speaking terms. You are just dumb, and I'm pretending you don't exist. P.S., thank you for nonetheless giving us a Series 2 [to be aired, when, 2012? um, will the world exist then? oh well], kisses!)
First of all: MAJORLY WEIRD watching these after having seen 1x12 and 1x13. It's kind of like having the canon I created for the gap between 1x07 and 1x12 erased and replaced with Reality. i.e., it's exactly that. This both !!!! and :(, for the record.
1x08: "Samaritan"
MATT DEALS WITH POST-1X07 BY ASKING ALESHA HOW SHE'S DOING TWENTY TIMES A DAY, WHICH SHE GRACIOUSLY REBUFFS LIKE ALL THE TIME BECAUSE I HAVE TO IMAGINE SHE IS SICK OF PEOPLE ASKING HOW SHE IS DOING.
JAMES DEALS BY NOT ASKING AND LET HER LOSE HERSELF IN WORK.
Oh... them.
1x09: "Hidden"
ngl, as excited as I was to see "Bitter Fruit" get the UK treatment (S6! SECRET AFFAIR SEASON!) - I WAS SORT OF, WELL, OKAY I WAS HELLA DISAPPOINTED. Like, first of all - on my top ten list of favorite L&O episodes. It's got that lady from Little Shop as the mom, and there's A SHOOTING IN THE COURT ROOM (which Jack sardonically mocks Claire later for as a "near death" experience - Season 6, you are fantastic). So the fact that, because it's England, the shooting mid-arraignment has to become a knifing in the post-arraignment press conference (and a strange, blurry, nearly anti-climatic one at that).... boy, I don't know. It really lacked the shock of a gun shot interrupting Claire mid-sentence and spraying blood over her, IS ALL.
I also don't know what I think about the changes they made to the mother character in general - from a person in the US version who does it for custody and whose motivations can be reduced down to her final exchange with Jack ("I loved her!" / "But... you hated your husband more.")... to this, I don't know, vaguely sympathetic person? Like, I'm not saying it's bad. Considering the fact that since I've seen this episode SEVERAL TIMES I recognized whole scenes that were lifted from the original 6x01 episode word-for-word, that they took the time to tweak anything is a novel and awesome thing. I just think it's interesting that whereas the trademark of Old School L&O (and maybe Law & Order in general) is this sense of almost - do I want to call it non-judgment for someone's illegal activity? Maybe. The brilliance of Law & Order - at least the original - is this grey area they're sometimes able to balance where, in the final Reveal scene, you might not agree with whatever illegal activity the Guilty Party has engaged in, but you understand its motivation (whatever "understand" means). Yes, I'm even talking about those episodes that have to do with hate crimes. For ten seconds, you see something in a character that is true - it might be awful, it might be fucking awful and ignorant and TOTALLY AWFUL, but it's also true to that character.
So - I don't know. This slight distinction between "I think that my husband was out to get me, so I kidnapped our daughter" and "I just wanted to kidnap my daughter to get money so we could run away I'd be a Good Mom" makes sense to me? I guess the difference is that, in "Bitter Fruit," Jack McCoy uses the law to go THAT'S NICE, ACTUALLY YOU ARE GOING TO JAIL ANYWAY; whereas in 1x09, James Steele uses the law simply to say UM NO YOU ARE WRONG. There's a difference. Really.
Um. On the other hand, IN TERMS OF THE ACTUAL UK EPISODE (NOT TO BE A CRAZY PERSON), it's really great that as much as James is totally reacting as a father to Kailey Gaines' crime, um, I don't think I'm stretching much to see him reacting as a guy who knows a girl named Alesha who probably desperately wanted to walk up to the dude who raped her two episodes ago and stab him dead (but didn't, because That's Wrong) (is it?). Like - in the show in my mind, James carries around a whole hell of a lot of guilt about not being able to convict that dude. I suspect that perceived guilt is 65-70% supported by canon (PLUS BY CHEATING AND KNOWING ABOUT THE 1X12 ICE SKATING DATE).
Here is something that is going to sound really awful: man, changing that episode from the Olivet character to Alesha is probably going to mean epic important things down the line, yes? For one thing, the only time an American character has been involved in a crime was that time CLAIRE DIED (and thus, her involvement was only after the fact; please see: Jack's two seasons of alcoholism and prosecutorial misconduct).
I AM STILL ANXIOUS TO DISCOVER HOW WE GET TO THE DATING LAWYER SPIES THAT JAMES & ALESHA ARE IN 1X12, BY THE WAY.
Also, happy birthday, Fox Mulder.
And for the record, I absolutely nominated L&O UK for Yuletide.