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for 'Criminal Intent'
'L&O' franchise gains from addition of third show
By Elizabeth White
When "Law and Order: Criminal Intent" was first announced, there was certainly no small amount of talk that even the enduring "Law and Order" franchise was at risk of overexposure that stood to advance the entire series into dementia and a premature demise.
Now that the new series has been on for a month, that appears to be a risk its producers need not worry about.
"Criminal Intent" may not be as good or as popular as the original "Law and Order," but it’s still one of the most promising shows of the new season.
It has the strong characters and the suspenseful storytelling common to all the "Law and Order" shows, a funky variation on the theme song, and a new twist on the old formula by including the criminal’s point of view.
Vincent D’Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe play two detectives in the major crimes division of the New York City police department. The show spends roughly half its time following the police investigation and the other half following the criminals. The sections aren’t neatly separated, as in "Law and Order," but interspersed for a more suspenseful effect.
The show works fluidly overall, and the insight into the criminal side is a welcome change from the witness interviews that dominate much of the police work on the other "Law and Orders."
"Criminal Intent’s" biggest flaw is its biggest star.
D’Onofrio’s Detective Goren is more mannered than most "Law and Order" detectives, and as such he draws attention away from the plot and other characters.
That’s slightly annoying on its own, particularly when Goren has near-psychic insights into the mind of the killer, but it could also spell trouble for "Criminal Intent" down the road.
By creating such a central, dominant character, "Criminal Intent" becomes more personality-driven than other "Law and Orders," and the show would have a tough time surviving if D’Onofrio ever left the cast.
But that’s a far-off complaint for a show that just got its first full-season order last week, even though that order surprised almost no one in the media industry.
Everyone expected that the quality of "Criminal Intent" would be good. Executive producer Dick Wolf has spent the past decade perfecting the crime drama, and he’s already shown with "Special Victims Unit" that the "Law and Order" formula can be duplicated.
The real question for most media folks was whether there was enough audience to sustain a third primetime hour of "Law and Order."
After four weeks of the series, the answer is yes, to a certain degree.
"Criminal Intent" is a top-25 show, but unlike the other two "Law and Order" shows, it doesn’t own its time period on Sundays at 9 p.m. It has tough rivals in ABC’s "Alias" and Fox’s Major League Baseball (soon to be "The X-Files"), and "Criminal Intent’s" average of 12.9 million viewers and a 4.4, adult 18-49, rating keeps the show competitive with both.
Compared to the other "Law and Order" shows, "Criminal Intent" trails "Special Victims Unit" by an average of over two-million viewers, season-to-date, and the original "Law and Order" by nearly nine million viewers.
To be fair, both of the previous versions built their audience over time--"Law and Order" is currently having its best season yet--and "Criminal Intent" is addictive enough to be regularly winning total viewers in its time period by May. D’Onofrio should stick around at least that long.
October 29, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-Elizabeth White is a staff writer for Media Life.
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