TheAgitator.com
Chicks Dig Sam Waterston, Ct’d.
Friday, February 27th, 2004
The weird “women love Law & Order” meme continues.
I’d say that four of every five smart, professional, urban women I know are obsessed with the show. I told one female friend about the phenomenon. She said I was nuts. That was about six months ago. The other night, she apologized. She’s hooked. Last week, she said she watched four episodes in a row. Someone’s doctoral thesis is waiting.
Now? Law & Order art! This one’s called “Lennie Grabs a Dog.”
Hat tip: Marginal Revolution.
The “Brandon Bird art” theme continues as well.
Thanks you theagitator.com, I have “Brave Cone Dog” hanging in my office.
Ten bucks says there is tons of Law & Order slash fiction floating around the Internet…
After reading your first entry on this from back in ‘02, I realized that it was my (scary smart) girlfriend that got me hooked on L&O, too. Since I didn’t start watching until about this time last year, not only do the new ones grab me, but there’s like a decade worth of reruns on cable I’ve never seen either. Not to mention the spin-offs. SVU is especially good.
Someone’s doctoral thesis is waiting.
Yeah. That pretty much nails it.
As a libertarian/market-liberal, I enjoyed the early episodes with dist. atty. Ben Stone–watching him put the screws to innocent folks, one-after-another, on his righteous quest to nail the guilty.
It was a weekly frightening display of a gov’t worker wielding enourmous power in hopes of collaring the correct individual(s).
My wife dug Law & Order in a big way, though I had never seen it until she finally talked me into watching an episode. I was stunned at how horrifyingly bad the writing was. Really awful, people-don’t-talk-like-this dialogue smeared over the same old story arc.
And Sam Waterston, I’m convinced, is animatronic.
In the criminal justice system the people are represented by two seperately equal and important groups: the police who investigate crimes, and the district attorneys whos prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.
Opening scene: two colorful New Yorkers engaging in trivial banter discover body.
Lenny shows up drinking coffee and chastises stupid beat cop.
Identify victim.
Chase obvious perp (OP): boyfriend, business partner, angry neighbor, etc.
Half-hour: OP turns out to have alibi. Time for half-hour plot twist.
Find new less-obvious perp (LOP).
Spend the next half-hour convicting LOP.
You know five smart, urban, professional women? Come on.
Brendan –
That was good!!! Now, do “Three’s Company”…
I realize we live in a Tivo world now, but I stopped watching Law and Order about the time South Park came on.
That’s a picture of Jerry Orbach, not Sam Waterston.
People tend to be convicted of crimes because they’re stupid, and they talk. Very rarely are crimes solved because some brilliant cops connect all the dots. But this is a time-honored TV narrative so I guess it’s not going away.
(Old people love this show too, although they love any show where some fogy tosses young punks in the slammer. See: Matlock, Murder She Wrote, etc.)
Oh yeah, at what did Sam Waterston do do get that string of steaming dark-haired temptresses to work with him? And why did they always leave?
oops - “and what did Sam Waterston do to get. . .”
I’ll leave now.