dun DUN: Rene Balcer Murdered ‘Law & Order’
by John NolteWhen “Law & Order” first hit the airwaves in September of 1990, I was an immediate fan. The concept, the ignoring of the personal lives of the lead characters, the wonderful acting and especially the endless plot twists hooked me a few seasons before the public would catch on and make the show a regular ratings hit. The first four seasons are among four of the best ever produced for dramatic television, thanks mainly to Michael Moriarty’s exceptional work as Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone, a resourceful, Robert F. Kennedy-style hard-nosed prosecutor determined to see justice done (though the whole cast was top-notch).
After 88 episodes Moriarty left, Sam Waterston (one of my favorite actors) took his place, and while the show was never quite the same, it remained regular viewing until around 2002.
The program’s eventual deterioration was a case study in the boiling frog theory. The quality of the production and acting remained, but the politics slowly shifted to the far left almost without my noticing. And it wasn’t the actual politics that first became apparent; it was the negative effect of those politics on the quality of the storytelling.
The fun of the show, especially in those early seasons, was that you never knew how the story would end. Certainly, there were political moments, but the overriding theme of every episode was the determination of smart, dedicated people who carried a respect for the law doing their best to bring the guilty to justice. This was what the show was “about,” the agenda was to tell a helluva story, therefore the plot could go anywhere, and did.
But as the year 2000 closed in, this agenda slowly turned more towards the political, making the plot-twists predictable to the point that once the detectives interviewed a white businessman or anyone wearing a crucifix, the game was pretty much over. This all-too common phenomenon in all branches of fictional storytelling today is what I call the “Liberal Tell,” and the “Liberal Tell” sucks the suspense out of everything. Simply put: Once you understand the politics of the entertainment industry, you know the story can only conclude one way.
Living with the “Liberal Tell” is much easier than living with the “Leftist Sucker Punch,” and after September 11th, “Law & Order” went off the rails. Increasingly, and from out of nowhere, one of the show’s characters would invariably launch a jarring partisan shot at President Bush, the Iraq War, or the Patriot Act… and things quickly got to the point where sitting and waiting for the sucker shot made it impossible to relax and get lost in the show.
Last week, and for the first time in 6 or 7 years, I tuned in for a new episode. Someone tipped me that the season premiere revolved around the indictment of the Bush Administration, specifically Dick Cheney, for the so-called “Torture Memos.” The episode was titled “Memos from the Darkside.” Here’s a synopsis:
When young war veteran Greg Tanner is found murdered in a Hudson University parking garage, Detectives Cyrus Lupo (Jeremy Sisto) and Kevin Bernard (Anthony Anderson) connect the murder to law professor Kevin Franklin (Guest Star David Alan Basche), an attorney who formerly worked for the Department of Justice. But when the case is brought to court, it seems Tanner (Guest Star Creighton James) may have been more affected by the war than his discharge stated. Lupo and Bernard find that the pieces start to fit when Franklin’s memos from the Bush Administration are leaked.
Well, that’s only half the story. Jack McCoy (Waterston, who’s been promoted to D.A. since I last watched) loses the murder case against the law professor/former Justice Department lawyer and decides to prosecute him for writing the “Torture Memos,” which outlined the legalities involved in the enhanced interrogation of terrorists. Essentially, McCoy tries to put a lawyer in jail for interpreting the law at the request of his boss.
The episode is worse than partisan, it’s stupid. You don’t have to be Clarence Darrow to understand that interpreting the law isn’t illegal but McCoy’s malicious prosecution probably is.
Worse than that, the show was awful. And this may not be the case every week, but on this particular episode everyone’s acting meter was broke (including the normally reliable Waterston), the score was over-the-top with melodrama and the story was ludicrous to the point of intelligence-insulting.
The show’s theme was also the very worst one any storyteller can choose: Sanctimony. McCoy’s unbearable superiority and smugness penetrates every scene. It was like listening to George Clooney accept an Oscar for an hour.
So what happened to this once must-see show whose ratings last season were less than half of their 2001 peak?
In two words: Rene Balcer.
Balcer not only co-wrote last week’s “Indict Cheney” episode, he’s been the show’s executive producer since 1996, and judging from this 2005 interview, what he calls “the so-called War on Terror” seems to have affected his approach to the show. He has nothing but contempt for the Bush Administration’s efforts to keep us safe and isn’t shy in stating how his show is used to promote his Bush Derangement propaganda:
“There’s a balance, but anyone who’s been watching knows our best shows make the public question what’s going on. We don’t necessarily give them the answers, but we do encourage them to question what’s going on.”
Balcer truly does believe television can sway the way people think. Later in the interview he actually claims, quite seriously, that the use of torture as a dramatic device on “24” could influence an Iraqi insurgent to torture an American soldier.
And if you’re wondering if Balcer’s Leftist extremism extends only to national security, here’s another video where he complains about the L.A. Times and New York Times not being liberal enough:
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Using “Law & Order” as his own personal Leftist-Wet-Dream-Machine is not only an abuse of the public airwaves, it tarnishes the legacy of a once great show and insures it will limp off the field remembered as just another “liberal Hollywood” punchline.
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213 Comments
My gosh, the “Liberal Tell.” I had to re-read that several times. That just nailed so well what exactly has been bothering me, and escaping specific definition in compact terms in my mind, for so long about so many shows, movies, books, etc. And why I just couldn't finish reading/watching them, or even start (as is more & more often the case). This was a terrific article, as usual, but that is a wording that will stick with me for some time, and I appreciate you coming up with it, or with printing if it's not original to you.
Yes, I used to love "L & O" too, but like so many old friends, we've slowly drifted apart due to very different views of the world that just can't be reconciled. Something else that saddens me, that folks like the 9/11 terrorists, extreme left-wingers, and other America-haters have taken from me and can consider a small victory I guess. If making me stronger, more awake, and more resolute is really a victory.
That's the show on television where I routinely cheer for the "bad" guys to win.
I haven't noticed the liberal tell with Criminal Intent, so I'll continue to watch that one. As for regular Law and Order, it's dead to me.
Why, oh why, do we insist on giving Hollywood any of our time and energy?
I simply gotta quit. The only show I can stomach any longer is The Biggest Loser (pardon the pun).
Eagerly awaiting the New Hollywood.
Criminal Intent? Are you serious? Every time I've tried to watch that excuse for a television show, there's been some underlining conspiracy being uncovered between Catholic Church nuns, boy scout leaders or the somehow-transformed-into-a-Repulican-organization KKK to take over the world.
I do think SVU is still mostly watchable, though. And I'm a Catholic, so even though my conservative sensibilities make me recoil when they uncover some dirty Protestant church plot where Pastor John and wife Sue are secret mass murdering white people, I can't help but giggle just a little bit.
I stopped watching it when they so brutally "wrote out" the assistant DA played by Anne Parisse. By that point (season 16?) the writing had already started to get noticably leftist.
…and it's funny, Mr. Nolte, that the picture you chose to head this article is of the best cast they had.
When I heard the plot line, I didn't even bother watching it. It used to be one of my favorite shows, but the leftist politics have ruined it. I still watch SVU – but that one is starting to get too political also. I recently started watching CSI: NY because I really like Gary Sinese – he's a real patriot who does a lot to support the troops. Hollywood thinks they can use movies and TV for their propaganda – instead the shows lose ratings and are cancelled, and the movies bomb. But they'll never learn!
When you have a gold shield NYPD detective (character Lenny Briscoe) complaining about the Patriot Act because it doesn't give the "skels" enough due process rights, you know the writers have taken a ride to unicorn land. No one is angrier about 9/11 than the folks who lost 60 of their fellow officers a few blocks away from Dick Wolfe's office at Chelsea Piers in Lower Manhattan.
Cops laugh at this liberal fantasy: cops who think perps get screwed by the system.
Trust me, the lawyers laugh at it right along with the cops. The writers should at least audit a Trial Practice and/or Con Crim Pro class or two.
The last several episodes I've watched have been about white serial killers (statistically accurate), money launderers/ponzi schemers, washed-up hippie rockers turned murderous, and cop killers.
Say what you will about it, but I know my tastes, and I enjoy Criminal Intent. I used to like SVU, but lately I feel that I need brain bleach after each episode. I don't want to think about the kind of stuff shown on that show.
Mr. Nolte, as usual, is right-on in his assessment and critque. I, too, was a die-hard L&O fan from the beginning. However, as the years have rolled by, I've seen the snarky attitude on display by all the primary actors towards the same select few: Christians of any stripe, home-schoolers, and Republicans. As I fall into all three categories, I've rolled my eyes plenty of times in order to get through an episode. But after Det. Lennie Briscoe died and with Det. Mike Logan's departure, I lost interest. Det. Logan was the heart and soul of the show. I started watching again when Fred Thompson was the DA, but I grew tired of the shrill leftist preaching and blatant Bush bashing after he left. Waterston has really gone off the deep end. Oh, well, the new CBS drama "The Good Wife" is really good.
Law and Order and I have grown apart in recent years.. Now I know why.:The Liberal Tell . Jerry Orbach's passing and so-so casting (Fred Thompson, Angie Harmon, Chris Noth, Benjamin Bratt, and Jesse Martin excepted) are also a factor.
Thanks for giving this condition a name. I want to duct tape Balcer The Punk to a chair, tape his eyes open , his mouth shut and make him watch a continuous loop of the planes flying into the towers, poor souls leaping out of buildings, and dust/debris covered NY Police and Firemen, Mayor Giulani , Bernard Kerik, and ordinary citizen volunteers doing their best in a dreadful situation.
Don't forget the Elizabeth Rohm "You fired me because I'm a lesbian" plot device from a few seasons ago. While the water might have been boiling pretty good on the frog by then, that out-of-left-field line with absolutely zero story development beforehand to back it up was a case of not just turning up the heat on the frog, but sticking it and the pot in the microwave for 30 minutes as far as shoehorning a liberal pet issue into a place where it had no business being.
I stopped watching after they did a story based on the DC Snipers but made the characters White Militia members.
From the Jul. 12, 2008 issue of the Wall Street Journal:
" [Wolfe ] tells his writers that the series should be like Campbell's Soup: many different flavors,
all of which are of consistent quality and predictable taste. "Episodic television
is the triumph of the familiar," he is known to say. One way Mr. Wolf maintains
this consistency is by making most of the victims wealthy white people, which
he believes viewers are more interested in watching. He limits the number of
shows containing minority victims, including blacks and Muslims, to four or five
episodes a season out of 22 to 24."
What lies the liberal tell.
Don't forget that the money source for all this is the GE/NBC Green Machine.
The liberal-tell and the sucker-punch are why it's so easy to just not watch. It's been a long time since my response to flipping past L&O was to stop flipping.
One of my very favorite authors just managed the same thing. I'm sure she's not a different person now than she was before, but apparently she's enough of a "big name" that she has decided that she doesn't need half of her audience any longer.
Which new shows could a Conservative watch these days?
Law and Order should do a script about a Hollywood type raping a 13 year old girl.
Law and Order used to be one of my favorite shows on tv, but i too stopped watching at least 4 or 5 years ago. the show really should have hung up it's hat at that time. honestly i can't believe it's still on.
I too was a huge fan of L & O for the first couple of years but noticed early on the subtle shifting of the dialog towards the uber left. SVU was especially prone, with Belker often making a snide comment meant to invoke liberal angst towards anything conservative or even remotely Republican. I dont' give a fig about either party but the whole Law and Order suite of shows has gone down the proverbial hopper for making political hay at the expense of the viewership. Too bad. The early shows were very well written, acted and kept the viewers cominb back. Just like most the Linda Bloodsworth Thomas sitcoms that started out so well and well received, they slid down the hill right after they tried to use the program to push their political agendas. I have not watched any of the L & O line up in years with any regularity and usually find myself channel surfing after only a few mintues. It is predictable, boring and trite regardless of who they put into roles trying to pump some life back into the series. When something sucks, it just sucks. You can't throw a new blanket on an old stable nag and try to pass it off as a race horse. Pull the plug on the series and fire the imbecile who ruined it, whoever he is.
I don't watch much TV, but I used to always enjoy watching Law & Order… I can't stomach it anymore after this episode…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1186499/
"A fanatical Christian teenager is implicated in the stoning death of his mother because of her adultery. Did the boy's pastor incite him to take action, and is he criminally responsible?"
I agree with you 100%. Did this show ever have any consultation with "real" police officers or prosecutors ? This show was worse then even I would have expected from the GE run, propaganda, broke$$$ network. There is nothing on that network noteworthy to watch. Beating that very dead drum on every show every night – it's redundant and boring. This show folded along time ago in my eyes. Leftist horseshit also ruined my other favorite show last year "24" . Both shows, at least for me – are "done". Somewhere, someday someone will "right " the industry and bring it back from the dead and make a fortune doing so.
I gave up on SVU a while back when they had a round table of normal (albeit middle eastern) people telling how the US tortured them in Iraq.
Oh yeah, that line made me laugh out loud, esp. since in the four years leading up there wasn't a single hint that she even HAD a romantic life.
BTW, that episode with the Christian stoning aired like 6 months after Cold Case pretty much did the exact same thing..
I would challenge anyone to go back and watch the L&O episodes with a different set of filters. Look for how few minorities are represented in this show. Yes, I know that there are minorities represented in the main characters, but almost all of the criminals end up being white. For a city teeming with the greatest multi-cultural representation of any other city it baffles me that this show cannot get more minorities on the show. I also noticed this when watching CSI Miami. A city full of hispanics and their are very few represented in each episode.
Elisabeth Rohm is possibly the worst actress in Hollywood. She stunk up the first season of "Angel" before moving on to pee all over L&O. You can actually watch the show come to a dead halt when she's in a scene. That lesbian line is hands-down the stupidest moment on a drama show I've ever seen.
i stopped watching it when julia roberts was a guest star…
The worst of the L&O franchise is SVU. Who exactly considers pedophilia entertaining?
Yeah, because non-whites are such a tiny percentage of the population in NYC and are so much less likely to commit a crime than wealthy white people. Don't you know there are more Christian, white, Republican homeschoolers per capita in NYC than anywhere else in the country?
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Michael Chavez. Michael Chavez said: dun DUN: Rene Balcer Murdered ‘Law & Order’ http://bit.ly/xBwiS [...]
Good for you for remembering that ! We still laugh at it…if we happen to watch that re-run. We couldn't believe how lame/pathetic the comment was at the time. Talk about laughing out loud!
I think the most despicable thing done on Law & Order was their episode based the tragic murder of actress/director Adrienne Shelly. They aired the episode only months after her murder.
Used to love all the Law & Order series but now the thrill is gone. Did it ever occur to any Hollywood writers, producers and directors as well as actors that not all Americans hate their Country. Maybe they should try to view life from the other side. Try writing a show that doesn't always critisize the USA. What makes them think that I give a hoot about their opinions. Most Amnericans want to be entertained. You know, that when I am finished watching a show i don,t hate everything about this country. A story linr that makes me feel better after it's over than when it began. A show that doesn't condem God, Family & Country? Pretty soon, I won't even put the TV on anymore!
Even my a-political wife can't handle the garbage they've been putting out for the last few years.
Someone earlier said this was the show where they root for the bad guys.
I'm in the same corner, I'm a Law and Order (not the show, the philosophy) kind of guy. I happen to believe that our law enforcement and judicial public servants should be honest and ethical and follow the law. Who knows when you will be on the receiving end of a wrong address in a sting or a bad ID?
When I see the lazy shortcuts and the lawbreaking done by the cops in these shows it turns my stomach that they are portrayed as heroes and not criminals.
Sports.
It's funny, before sites like this I thought I was pretty much alone in loving the show as it started (with Michael Moriarty, who was an awesome actor but who has become a mentally unbalanced drunk).
What bugs me about this stuff is, if you bring it up to people, they think you're crazy. "You see liberal conspiracies in everything!" But the thing is, it's not about a conspiracy: these people are right up front with their advocacies and pathologies. Left-wing politics has ruined just about every great show recently. Jonah Goldberg's article on BSG summed up perfectly how I felt about that show sliding down the left-wing slippery slope (although I think the decline is visible in the second season, from around when they start defending the 'Sharon' Cylon and the other incarnation of the blonde).
I'd wonder when they will learn, but this has been going on for ages. They'll never learn, and as long as they make a profit (which is hard for a show NOT to do) and win awards from other lefties, they'll think they're right.
"It was like listening to George Clooney accept an Oscar for an hour."
Yeah, that's pretty much my personal hell.
Hmm…. I didn't know Christians stoned anyone… that would kinda go against our own God's words and thus be hypocritical… Shows how much they know about our faith… :/ morons…
I'm still trying to figure out why anyone watches network TV anymore.
The programming is consistently unfunny, unoriginal, not entertaining in any way.
All the so-called "edgy" shows are just the opposite.
I'm sticking with sports and maybe a little Food Network….that's it.
Bye , networks. You're neck and neck with the newspaper industry, 50 yards from the cliff.
He would of course be a closet Republican, probably working for Fox.
Blogger Steve Sailer noted that the first few seasons of Law and Order were very poorly rated. The reason? It depicted ACTUAL NYC crimes, i.e. the perpetrators and the victims mostly Black or Puerto Rican. S. Empatha Merkeson for example, was nominated IIRC for an Emmy as the role of the mother of a young boy killed by a drug gang assassin who could not read and got to the wrong house. Much of the first two seasons were based on actual, NYC criminal cases in the news.
BUT … NBC's SWPL yuppie audience found the reality of crime: mostly Black and Hispanic, as perpetrators and victims, boring and depressing and un-PC. So, the cases switched to "White Villains" to make the SWPL yuppie audience happy. Ratings INCREASED. With victims and villains all White. A narcissistic self-regard.
Then, the writing staff shifted to divorced women, and the main villains (around 1996-2000) shifted to reasonable facsimiles of the ex husbands of the staff writers. Nothing too amazing here. GWB bashing is the least of it. So too the Uber-PC smugness. That's been implicit in the show after the first two low-rated years.
Network TV audiences are overwhelmingly White, and Middle Class. They find the true nature of crime, uncomfortable to watch. Most crime consists of what Homicide: Life on the Street depicted in it's first few seasons: Ghetto Black and Hispanic people with no social framework or social control doing something predictably stupid because the short-term rewards for it are large. This social reality is depressing (among the implications, that social traditions, religion, mores, and other Burkean notions do more to control crime than pure policing) and so few are wiling to watch it — rather PC Dogma and smugness multiplied.
With horrific baggage to portray HIM as a quasi-victim, as well as the 13 year-old girl. Victims, victims, victims abound!!!
I used to love that show, also Law & Order SVU. Now I can’t watch either one of them. It started with Christian bashing, and degenerated into full-on leftist propaganda.
I only watch N.C.I.S. and I did try that new spin off which had lotsa action but I dont like the chars enough and there is no Abby and no Gibbs and no Dennozzo and no Zeva and without them I am just not interested.
I've been watching NCIS reruns on ION…
ummmmm, the first CI episode with Christopher Noth had ol Chris say to Vince "I read the Patriot Act before. It was called '1984'"
Kind of started losing me then. Afterward, when they had the episode where they implied, rather heavy handedly, that all returning IRAQ GI's were potential mass-murderers, well, I don't watch the show anymore, so I've lost them as a friend, too. Shame, there were some great stories in that show, early on.
Well, there's the people who signed the petition support Polansky…
I must admit though, that at one time I thought SVU was entertaining. The entertaining part, of course, is when the criminals realized they'd been caught and were going to jail.
"Balcer truly does believe television can sway the way people think."
And unfortunatelly, he is probably right. I think that television is the reason Obama won and the reason he thinks if he gets on television often enough, his agenda will be accepted.
I was wonder when this issue would be brought up. I loved that show and also Boston Legal. They went into full koo-koo for cocoa puffs many years ago. And the anti conservative/religious/republican/bush/cheney, et al is more than anything else….stale and boring. The thing about how "politics slowly shifted to the far left almost without my noticing" is SO true and such is the case with MANY shows and once you start to see it, you see the "tells" more and more. It is insidious and damaging. I recently saw a "creeping in" of such in the show "House" and am just waiting for the eventual fall of that show….and others
I enjoyed CSI New York very much last night and I think everyone here should make sure to watch. Gary Sinise obviously has an input on the show and the solid, unremarkable conservatism the show portrays is just delightful.
Last night was an episode about a person dying of cancer who was tormenting and killing people he felt responsible for his condition. The final scene when Mr. Sinise confronts the dying man took my breath away.
Plus, ahem, the cast sure is easy on the eyes.
I enjoy NCIS, but I really miss JAG.
I was devoted to L& O, SVU and CI but not any more. The propaganda got to me and turned me and my TV off. If Dick Wolfe wants to save these shows he'd better intervene to stop them being used by those with a radical agenda. Of course the shows fit in with the politics of NBC so maybe they are calling the shots.
Than why look at a site called Big Hollywood? It should be a clue what to expect…
Thanks for the terrific article, John, I guess I was off a year… http://newsrealblog.com/2009/09/28/welcome-to-199... . Upon refection, it probably was around 1997 that I'd had enough.
You can bet they will, only with a few minor changes.
He'll be a member of the NRA, and his will be something like Charlie Hestor.
The shows original concept, that it's a "just the facts, ma'am" presentation, where we don't hear their personal lives, it isn't about their love lives, and it's no-nonsense approach, was tossed away and it became yet another piece of TV dreck. I watched about 4-5 seasons and lost interest, which seems to coincide with when the concept changes took place.
Face it, anything good will not be popular. We are a nation bred (literally) and trained to be lower functioning than in the past. The lower functioning or ignorant multiply quickly and the educated and intelligent have fewer children. We then send them to public indoctrination centers where they learn stuff that matters not a wit at the expense of learning useful things. It's natural selection at work.
Normally this trend is counteracted by forces such as the need to be able to care for one's self before one procreates, but thanks to Big Brother we've removed most of that requirement so even the stupid, lazy, and foolish can have children w/o fear of hunger or privation.
Try the movie "Idiocracy" for a comical take on this.
He's no longer on the show, and the first Jeff Goldblum episode had the police going after a washed-up Woodstock band member who was trying to pin his murders on black gang members. That one won me over.
I too was looking forward to the season premier but I didn't even make it half way through the DVR'd episode before I hit the delete button. That's the best they could do was, "that evil George Bush". Wasn't worth my time.
"Balcer truly does believe television can sway the way people think."
If it had existed then so would have Joseph Goebbels. This is just privatized propaganda.
I haven't owned a TV for more than 5 years. I too had lost interest in L&O long before I gave up TV for an internet connection. I felt the shows fell flat with B. Brat pushing the cast's lives as prime story lines – the thing about L&O was that the cast did not get in the way of the story.
well it's nice to know that I haven't missed anything since throwing the tube out the window (symbolically speaking)
I don't know why anyone bothers with Network dramas at all. There is nothing but dreck there. We own a TV primarily to watch our Red Sox (now there is psychic pain) and to watch Good Eats on the Food Network. Quality TV and an education to boot.
When you consider the "moral compass" that allows the Hollywood types to approve of child rape while disapproving of a decent man trying to protect this country you can't be surprised at what they try to feed you on TV.
I wish I had the ole 'Costas' interview with Michael Moriarty on tape.
It lasted almost a whole week's worth of bob Costas' talk show that was on after Letterman (who was on after Carson at the time).
They spoke of how he was pushed out (probably because of his politics)
I refuse to watch Law & Order, it's merely a documentary on the leftist cancer that's eaten away the creative spirit at NBC. Hopefully Comcast will clean house and put things to right at NBC when they purchase it, I claim dibs on Keith Olberman's office.
Turn on Burn Notice. It's everything these pretentious detectives-in-$1000-suits shows aren't – fun, well-acted, respectful of its audience and enjoyable – amazingly enough, without the sanctimony.
They'll find a way to prove it wasn't rape-rape, no doubt.
I did exactly the same… no more newer L & O's here.
I love NCIS and the NCIS: Los Angeles is pretty good, too. NCIS makes me wish I were 20 years younger and an American so I could join the Marines!
The Unit, kind cheesy but the few episode's I've seen mentioned little about politics.
and with patriotism!
I stopped watch L&A years ago. The show became a political for Dick Wolf and his cronies. These shows start out OK, then they just can't help themselves and have to insert their own warped political views. The first to really do this was The Lou Grant Show with Ed Asner. NBC wonders why no one watches their shows? Kind of like the newspaper people wondering where all the readers have gone.
I'm with you! The only L & O I can watch is the NY version as I, too, support Gary Sinise. I just simply got tired of everything to do with Christians or with any political issue was pretty much going to be the leftist agenda where they 'assume' that everyone thinks the way they do!
Yuck!!!!
Isn't that the entertaining part of any cop show?
I agree with the author. Law and Order is an incredible show; however when they started getting politically correct; it lost a lot. What a waste of a good show and the talent of his actors.
Here, here, for the Rockford Files. I ended my newspaper subscription the day after BO was elected, I do not watch L & O anymore for the same reasons cited by the writer, and I have quit going to movies. They can spout their liberal crap all they want, I'm not listening or watching (and it looks like a lot of others feel the same way. God help our country survive this miserable rabble.
That was the first time that I turned an episode off in the middle. It was so obvious that it was a anti-Bush propaganda piece that I already knew the ending without having to subject myself to all of that junk…
I haven't watched Law & Order for years, so it is no surprise how left wing it has become. That's what liberals do: to piss off people, they go left, and when the people leave, to try to bring them back they go further left, which pisses off more people who leave. It is why liberals never understand capitalism.
As for shows, I was starting to watch "The Mentalist" until the foreign imbecile/moron who heads up the show made a crack about how proud he was to be in America now that Obama was in office, and that was the end of that show for me.
I watch "Criminal Minds" and the original "CSI." So far, the first has had no ideology shoved into my face, and "CSI" tried some pro-abortion line years ago and when it went flat they backed off. The show is pretty good now as far as pushing any ideology, which is the way I like it.
The question here is, how long before the dupes on Law & Order have a "Roman Polanski" type show, in which some prosecutor (obviously a Republican or a right-winger) turns out to have slanted evidence against the poor, poor alleged child molester?
[...] John Nolte writes at Big Hollywood, the mid-1990s was also about the same time that Law & Order hired a new showrunner: The [...]
CI has the liberal tell but instead of the white businessman it's the Christian mom who's the automatic killer. I think that show has had at least two episodes where a Catholic homeschooling mom kills her kids.
This is why I spend so much of my free time in the evenings on the Internet.
So glad I stopped watching it. I heard what it was just and was not interested. Whats wrong with these people?
Law and Order, formally one of my must watch shows seems to have forgotten what happen what havened to the ratings of Boston Legal when they started in with the political propagandizing. I don't recall the last episode I watched but it turned me off to the degree that I walked out of the room, never to watch it again.
I have worked with Sam Waterston on 4 projects and eaten and chatted at length with him once. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think he would approve this BDS script. I guess my two remaining favorite Thespians are Albert Finney ( A complete gentleman) and Ruth Gorden. Sorry Sam, Sorry
I love the "liberal tell" concept. Like others, I had no name for it, but I knew it when I saw it.
My favorite was an episode of "ER" where the entire ER staff was in mortal danger because a shooting victim had a dud "exploding bullet" inside of him. IT COULD EXPLODE AT ANY TIME!!!!!!!
Yep NCIS and The Unit are good ones. Mark Harmon I have heard is a GOPER and Donald Bellisario the shows creator also made Magnum PI, Quantum Leap and JAG. Good people!
Used to watch them all the time. Not anymore. The one that drove me away was the SVU where they got the "Bush torture doctor's" licence revoked for writing a memo on interrogation techniques and stress positions. I also found myself waiting for the left wing shoe to drop during each episode. That's the reason I haven't gone to a movie in years…..can't change the channel (and too expensive to walk out on).
Not only Rene Balcer murdered "Law & Order", he buried the real thing somewhere next to Jimmy Hoffa's secret gravesite and had a replacement show pretending to be "Law & Order".
So, John Nolte, you didn't see the actual L&O show, you saw a liberal-dog-n-pony show.
I've never been a big fan of these kinds of shows, but my husband got me hooked on CSI:NY last season. I wanted to cheer when I saw a picture of President Reagan on Gary Sinise's desk on the show. And he's a former marine on the show, too! Yeah, I'm hooked!
It's funny that Dick Wolf is supposed to known for being one of the few small "c" conservatives in Hollywood. This show has always had a left edge to it but that edge has become far more pronounced as the years went by. Balcer may be the current driver of this drivel but I'm pretty sure that if Wolf disagreed it wouldn't get put on the air. On the other hand, maybe he just doesn't give a crap anymore and is just cashing the checks. Kind of a shame that Fred Thompson accepted campaign money from this guy. Makes you wonder a bit about his judgement.
How twisted is it that Hollywood has the gall to lecture anyone on morality?
I like Burn Notice. It doesn't get into politics too much, except for once when they went out of their way to declare waterboarding torture and "torture never works". Usually before they beat information out of someone.
And Chuck – it's such a fun show, and it has Adam Baldwin, who doesn't miss a chance to throw a little Republicanism into it.
What is it with me and these spy shows?
Pretty much anything on FX – Sons of Anarchy, Nip/Tuck, Damages (first year awesome, second year not so much), Rescue Me (although the truther subplot grates). They don't lay it on thick.
I was a regular fan until Jerry Orbach died; then watched it occasionally; tolerating the occasional leftist rant.
But their "jumped the shark" moment for me occurred a few years ago – don't think it was a particular episode but a accumulation…It seemed to swerve from good crime solving to social commentary…
I was a regular fan until Jerry Orbach died; then watched it occasionally; tolerating the occasional leftist rant.
But their "jumped the shark" moment for me occurred a few years ago – don't think it was a particular episode but an accumulation…It seemed to swerve from good crime solving to social commentary…
Thats right he also did Black Sheep Squadron. Good show that. And yeah I do like Burn Notice. Why? Its made like a cool 80's rogue detetive drama. Thats why.
For myself, I used to watch until the big liberal lecture and then turn it off. What also got me was every episode that involved a doctor portrayed them as the worst sort of weasely vile money-grubbing creature. Why? Why hate doctors? I can't watch it anymore.
I loved Boston legal just as long as I could turn it off at the big courtroom diatribe. So many good shows ruined by folks who believe they are the center of the universe.
I tried to watch that episode (I don't remember what came on before it though to warrant me having it on NBC, because now Heroes even sucks…) and I don't remember much of it because my computer held more of my attention than Law and Order… If it's on in our house it's usually because we aren't paying attention to what's on.
Well that makes sense… Rene is from Canada… :/
Let me explain a different angle of concern here. I was recalled to the military after 911 and have spent most of the last 8 years overseas fairly well immersed in other cultures. Here is a bit of a wake up call…. THEY WATCH THIS STUFF AND ASSUME IT IS TRUE.
I can't tell you how difficult it is to convince them otherwise and it poisons EVERY bloody relationship we work so hard to establish. I can bring a team of American military folks in to spend a brutal week drilling a well where nobody has been able to do it before but the memories of that one night they were able to watch an 'American' TV program in a nearby village remains in their mind and is the image we have to overcome.
Folks, in the 1940s someone would have been in court answerng questions about giving aid and succor to our enemies for producing this shite.
How about the terrorists that DID turn over valuable intelligence after "torture"? You'll forgive me I can't keep the names in my head, but look it up yourself.
How about the 4 recent discoveriess of domestic terrorists, and Americans shouldn't be fearful?!!
This guy's living in a politically correct, Beverly Hills bubble!
I used to wonder that about "Columbo".
The guy solved murders for 25 years, but not one was ever a brother from the hood.
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