I see season 1 has started again on Charge, so many good episodes right off the bat this season. Tonight’s episodes are episodes 4-7 - starting with The Faithful going through Poison.
The Faithful is on now, and this is one of the only early CI episodes to feel disjointed and not flow well, seemed to go all over the place for much of the episode, and it’s one of the few times I was annoyed with Goren - didn’t really get why he felt sympathy for the woman who had the affair with the priest. One of the weakest season 1 CI episodes.
I love Jones, The Extra Man and Poison though and look forward to watching those - all 3 of those are fantastic episodes.
Saw a video of Griffin Dunne, who of course played Henry Talbott in “Jones”, discussing his new book. He has aged well, but damned if he now doesn’t look and sound a lot like his famous father, Dominick Dunne.
Also can’t believe it will be 43 years this year since the murder of his actress sister, Dominique.
Dunne was once married to Carey Lowell, who played Jamie Ross on the Mothership!
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Talking CI elsewhere and someone linked to a photo of VDO from some Con back last summer when he was promoting Daredevil: Born Again. He looks almost at his S1 CI weight, except for the silvery hair. And, apparently, he is no longer required to bulk up as Wilson Fisk.
Picture link: x.com
(Click the first of the four photos to see!)
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If anyone watches the nightly Charge! blocks of CI, the schedule is undergoing a change as of the week of February 17th.
Instead of 4 hours straight, two episodes will now air from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon, with those starting from S1 again.
However, two episodes will still be shown nightly [except Saturdays], from 10:00 p.m. until midnight ET, and those will be sticking with the current time line. By the 17th, it will be the end of S4, going into S5.
Just a heads up!
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That’s too bad that they’ll only have 2 episodes at night on Charge, I really like the 4 hours of CI that’s on most nights there
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Me, too. Curious, though, how the show will now be airing two different eras in the same day.
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False Hearted Judges was one of the two episodes on Charge tonight, and this episode has my favorite Carver moment, when he stands up to the judge who wanted to violate the perp’s rights and keep him jailed, telling the judge he loves the constitution more. That was awesome, and Carver was such an underused character, he could’ve been one of the franchise’s most beloved prosecutors but he rarely got any focus. Such a shame how they underused him. The episode is very strong overall, with a good investigation by Goren/Eames and I liked how they tracked down the perps and got them to turn on each other.
Next up is Grow, one of the Nicole episodes where of course Nicole escapes again, blah. But I do enjoy seeing Goren and Logan interact in this one.
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Rest in peace to actress Michelle Trachtenberg, who played Lisa Willow Tyler in “Weeping Willow” in S6 [the online kidnapping episode]. Dead at only 39. The news said she had undergone a liver transplant, so maybe complications? Either way, far too young.
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Logan’s last episode, Last Rights, was just on Charge - Logan’s exit seemed so abrupt, I wish there had been a little bit more about it, while I bought that Logan would get fed up with the system and dealing with bureaucrats and slimebags like ADA Driver and decide to do something new with his life, it just happened very abruptly at the end, no lead up to Logan deciding to quit. It was a compelling case with the reopening of the old murders, and I liked how Logan was able to clear the innocent guy, but it was too bad Driver didn’t get arrested for her corruption at the end.
Frame is on now - this was an extremely underwhelming end to Nicole’s storyline, which had already gone on for WAY too long - having another villain kill her offscreen was just pathetic. And I hated how they threw Rodgers under the bus by having her tell Ross about Goren’s personal stuff. But it’s funny to see Frank Goren now given that his actor is the DA now - Frank and Nick Baxter couldn’t be more different but Tony Goldwyn is great at both roles.
As I said, if Logan had to leave, I wish the case could have been some Logan/Briscoe case the viewer was aware of on the Mothership or something.
I have not watched it in eons, but I read elsewhere that the priest character, the fellow friend of Lennie’s, appeared on an SVU episode. So I guess the franchise used to be better at continuity.
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There just wasn’t any open case that we knew of that Logan and Briscoe worked on together, so they would’ve had to invent something new, not something viewers had seen before. I didn’t have an issue with the case, just how abrupt Logan’s exit was, and that Driver didn’t get her comeuppance.
And yes the priest character appeared in a season 14 SVU episode, a few years after his appearance on CI.
Continuity has always been on and off on the franchise, it used to be better for sure, but lately there has been stronger continuity between the Mothership and SVU - we saw Benson on the Mothership and Baxter on SVU this season, and they’re doing a crossover in 3 weeks. Since the Mothership has returned they’ve made some effort at continuity, which SVU was horrid at until the Mothership returned, such as how they crapped on the DAs office nonstop up until the Mothership returned with Jack as DA, they cut that out quick.
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I’m glad there’s 4 CI episodes a night most nights on Charge again, and season 4, probably my favorite season, is on now. Want was just on, while I like the investigation I really disliked Goren’s sympathy for Tagman, what Tagman did was so barbaric he didn’t deserve any sympathy, and Goren yelling at Carver over wanting the death penalty was OOC.
As I’ve said before the start of season 4 is weird, with Goren feeling sympathy for 2 perps in 3 episodes neither of whom I found sympathetic - Tagman and nutty Nelda in episode 1. And then episode 4 had Nicole, and this is where the Nicole story should’ve ended, if it had ended there it would’ve been okay.
But the rest of season 4 is fantastic, the last two episodes on tonight, Eosphoros and In the Dark, are great and season 4 has so many strong episodes.
Obviously, some agreed with us that “Great Barrier” should have been it for Nicole Wallace, hence that NBC viewer’s choice poll for the episode.
Too bad the audience chose to have her live.
And “Want” is one of the only CI episodes I actively try to avoid. It creeps me out that much!
Season 4 was just sort of creepy and dark, all the way around. But good, minus “Want”. LOL.
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Want is definitely creepy and grotesque.
Season 4 definitely had some creepy and dark episodes, but it’s arguably my favorite season of CI, so many strong cases.
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My all time favorite CI episode, In The Wee Small Hours, is starting on Charge now! So much to love about this two hour episode, getting both pairs of detectives together plus courtroom scenes. CI has many great episodes but I think this is truly its finest.
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Yep, I still love it, too! And it was probably the last time it was remembered that CI was part of the franchise with the crossover by Arthur Branch.
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Yeah I love Arthur’s cameo here, putting his own signature on the arrest warrant for “Hot Tub Harry” and telling Carver he would promote him to bureau chief if he wanted him to.
CI did start feeling detached from the rest of the franchise afterwards, other than the mention of Jack McCoy in season 8, and I believe Arthur was referenced once or twice more. The L&O franchise has always been hit or miss with continuity but it would’ve been nice to have a bit more tie ins between CI and the Mothership/SVU, other than of course ME Rodgers appearing.
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Season 5 just finished on Charge, while I love the season I hate Deakins’ exit, it sucks and made him look like a quitter, very unsatisfying. Given the franchises shaky record with exits maybe it’s good Carver’s departure wasn’t really addressed. And it really pisses me off how Goren/Eames didn’t get a goodbye with Deakins in his last episode.
Now season 6 starts, ugh, my least favorite season, CI was so good and the new showrunners just threw a lot of the formula out the window in an attempt to be more “trendy” with the music scenes, fancy camera work and much more personal drama and watered down, less complex cases. And worst of all, asshat Ross joins the show, he’s awful from his first scene. Other than the 3 episode run of World’s Fair/Privilege/Albatross, season 6 is mostly a load of suck.
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Charge is doing Father’s Day themed episodes for all of their shows today - they picked out two excellent CI episodes, starting at 10, with awful fathers for it - Bright Boy and Death Roe - love both of those episodes and good choices for a Father’s Day theme given that the perps in those episodes were two of the worst dads in CI history.
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Yep! Watched last night. While Tommy Onorato was the obvious in disgusting “fathers”, Robbie’s father wasn’t much better, since poor Robbie was suicidal.
Still, as you said, they were good episodes. I guess it’s a lot harder to find good dads on this show! Well, there’s Johnny Eames (not perfect, of course, but he clearly loved Alex!).
Deakins appeared to be a good dad. And as much as I generally have no use for him, Ross seemed good with his sons in “Albatross”. There. Now no one can say I never said anything nice about him. LOL.
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