"I think we need Law And Order: Parking Violations Unit."
I love the original Law and Order, but even that has jumped the shark and devolved into a parody of itself. LaO: Special Victims Unit is pretty good, but it's getting a little old. I mean, how long can you sustain a series based on perverts and psychos? I've gotten to point that if I'm going to subject myself to the dark side of humanity, I'd rather watch something on Court TV that's based on real crimes, real victims, and real law enforcement heros. LaO: Criminal Intent lost my interest pretty quickly. I could only take so much of Vincent D'Onofrio's impression of Columbo on drugs.
CSI has similar problems. The characters are still interesting enough, however, that I don't always ditch it in favor of Forensic Files. I don't watch the spin-offs, though. I don't watch much TV and one CSI is certainly enough for me. At least it's not reality TV (Documentaries and education programs don't count.). Don't even get me started on that crap.
Anyhow, with all of the real crime and mayhem in our society, why do we need so many cop shows? Is it because justice isn't served in Real Life™? Are we trying to hide from society's ills by bombarding our senses with stories about people who are usually ok in the end and in which the bad guys are more often than not caught? Food for thought…
Funky Dung
Comments 1
Mysteries have been a common part of story-telling for at least over a century–Dostoyevsky was a master, and two of his masterpieces (Crime and Punishment and the Brothers Karamazov) had mystery components. It's a useful tool to probe the human psyche, many people like trying to solve the mysteries, and there's an aura of danger, and well, mystery to it that triggers many deep things in our psyches.
I wouldn't tie it in so much with a yearning for justice in the real world as much as I'd tie it in with rubber-necking at accidents.
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Posted 19 Aug 2005 at 3:38 pm ¶Post a Comment