Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-04-18 (Friday)

Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:

Law & Order - "Play with Fire Part 1" - In the annual cross over
episode, Benson show up at the regular police department and starts
trying to throw her weight around.  But the commander of the regular
unit isn't having it.

Law & Order: SVU - "Play with Fire Part 2" - Picking up where the last
episode ended, Team SVU is investigating sex trafficking involving a
priest.  I think.  I kind lost track of what was going on.  But Stabler
showed up at the end to threaten someone.

I had no idea it would be a crossover, so I had to wait till SVU showed
up on demand.

That... sucked.

The criminal was telegraphed early. By the end of the episodes, he'd
committed an unbelievably lengthy list of crimes he couldn't have had
time to commit while keeping his day job.

One of the murders was Benson's fault. She and Brady (I thought they
were playing good cop/bad cop, but no) had a fight about questioning a
witness. The witness gets spooks and runs off, realizing the two of them
were idiots. In the next scene, she's a corpse.

The show featured brand-new technology in forensics that I'd never heard
of... nor had anyone in the cast. It's possible to get DNA to analyze
from semem ... off an exhumed three year old corpse. It's
possible to analyze semen ... off a corpse that had been burned. I
realize not all parts of the body burn at the same rate but the samples
will have overheated.

One witness had been a drug abuser, but she went through a magical rehab
that washed and dry-cleaned her brain. It's less than a year and she's
already engaged to a saintly man... but hasn't told him even a single
fact of her life. From tv, I am aware that rehab tells you not to make
any major life decisions for a good year. Rehab is no cure, it's an
ongoing process "one day at a time" to maintain sobriety. That she made
those substantial life changes in so short a time was absurd.

And then we get testimony that's nothing but hearsay from her.

What's with Elizabeth Marvel? She was wearing that off-putting oddly
colored suit in court, oddly twisting her body to get around the defense
table, then standing at an odd angle in the well of the court.

Once again, no Mehcad Brooks, and no explanation.