‘Law & Order’ UK: White Landlord Did It
by Phelim McAleer
The first episode of “Law & Order” UK has just ended on British television. Spreading the franchise across the pond does have difficulties because of the differing legal systems but it still stays close to the setting and pacing of the US original.
Unfortunately, they have not escaped the predictability of the US show when it comes to the identity of the killer. The moment we saw the dead black child and later met his white businesswoman landlord it was fairly clear where the “mystery” was headed.
Just like the US show, the villain is always the white person who runs a business or is a corporate lawyer or landlord.
It would be entertaining for the entertainment industry to put some mystery into our modern detective dramas. But it is probably more important to show that white landlords/businesspeople/financiers will stop at nothing, including child murder, to make more money.
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57 Comments
My brother is a professor at UT but also teaches at Knoxville College, an all-black school. He told me once of the chat he had in his media course he had with the student body. In all TV (and most movies) the more blonde the guy is the more evil he intends to be- and the students, who admittedly hadn't thought much about it, nodded their heads in agreement… and with the Da Vinci Code an albino catholic is as evil as it gets…
I've never watched this show, but it sounds like outrageous propaganda. In the real world, inter-racial crime is almost always the other way around. For instance, the recent murder of Atlanta newscaster Anne Pressly: http://vdare.com/stix/090217_coulter.htm
that's why I always preferred to watch Homicide or The Wire
Definitely LaO has a slant against the white businessman. But, I have seen some really great episodes where the defended pro-life, gun rights, private school vouchers, and went against illegal immigration. Overall, I enjoy the show. I would be interested to watch the UK version. Is there a website where you can see the shows?
Hey, thanks for the spoiler warning, jerk.
Definitely LaO has a slant against the white businessman. But, I have seen some really great episodes where they defended pro-life, gun rights, private school vouchers, and went against illegal immigration. Overall, I enjoy the show. I would be interested to watch the UK version. Is there a website where you can see the shows?
On the US version we've not only learned that all corporate types are evil–or at least amoral. (Unless they're minority corporate types, in which case they were forced to act illegally.) We've also learned that there are, apparently, 37,489 white supremacist groups active in Manhattan alone. Who knew? Their ranks are filled with cops or ex-military men who have been driven mad by the violence inherent in the system. Please let us know if a corresponding element shows up in the UK version of the show. NP crazies, perhaps?
Weird alternate universe y'all got going here where L&O is too liberal, so you watch The Wire instead.
what?
And the twins in the Matrix Redux (or whatever it was called.)
You must be a glutton for punishment. Everything you post is so incompetent it demands ridicule, look at your dangerously negative rating as evidence. Unless you want to constructively contribute to the community here at BH, just keep your fingers off the keyboard.
And what's wrong with the Wire? a completely underrated show in my opinion.
Let me give away the ending to every L&O episode for the rest of the season…..the white Christian did it. There, now you don't have to watch it.
Martha Jones!!!!
Are you kidding? One of the reasons The Wire is so great is that it is so balanced — the behavior of the inner-city black community is presented in all its complexity (and without sugar-coating the deeply dysfunctional bits) and, at the same time, we see the parallel foibles of the police dept., politicians, etc. L&O story lines are eye-wateringly biased with all the overly simplistic left-wing canards. Snore. No comparison, imho.
I like Martha Jones, she got short changed by the writers. HATED Catherine Tate!!! The best episodes they had in that final season were all the ones where she was conveniently somewhere else while the Doctor was doing his thing.
Think I'll stick with Hot Fuzz.
I've never seen an episode of L&O, the Wire, or any other fake crime drama.
Watch "The First 48" or "The Shift", these are real crime shows following real detectives catching real bad guys.
There's no fluff, real people are murdered, and real killers go to jail.
Hollywood wouldn't know how to portray that, their too phoney.
There is a Disney/Nickolodean corollary: The rich blonde girl is always the mean one and takes advantage of the dark haired /hispanic looking girl who always gets the guy.
Actually, I liked both characters–Martha Jones & Donna Noble–though if I had to pick a favorite, it would be the latter of the two. Martha's character was very sweet, but not as much fun as Donna's. I'll admit my ignorance, though, when it comes to whether better writing would have made Martha's character more endearing. In the "Runaway Bride" episode, I was not sure I really wanted to see Noble's character ever again, but she totally redeemed herself (in my book) with the "Partners in Crime" episode at the beginning of Season 4.
That's just my take, though. I'll admit that in the two-parter with the "Forests of the Dead," I liked having the two–the Doctor and Donna–separated. And I was kinda grateful when the Doctor erased Donna's memory and she stopped being . . . well, . . . annoying to the point of almost inducing an aneurysm.
That being said, I'll leave you to return to something more relevant to this thread. Sorry if I've put you all to sleep.
Apparently the reality I live in is an "alternate universe" to the left, I've heard that pretty often. It's one of the big reasons that I can never trust a democrat to run anything in this country.
I tried watching L&O, the result was "everything's ripped from the headlines" and every case was based on some big leftist issue like abortion or racist murderers or whatever.
The Wire is one of the very few shows that actually show the justifications for why law enforcement needs to fight drug dealers. The cops are the good guys, the criminals are the bad guys, and everyone on both sides act like real people would act because the show is based on the memoirs of a real detective.
The Wire is created by the same people who made Homicide Life on the Street, which is as far from being a liberal TV show as TV will allow.
Did you ever see The Catherine Tate Show? It's really funny if you like British sketch comedy.
As an albino Catholic monk I must tell you that I look forward to seeing swarthy British jihaadis in the dock or being manhandled by tough, albeit unarmed bobbies.
The Wire has a lesbian character. It is wrong to portray them as anything else than what they are: confused persons suffering from same-sex attraction disorder. For that reason it is wrong because it tacitly infers that lesbianism is a good choice to make and a normal lifestyle. Plus everyone on the show is morally flawed. The percentage in real life is not that high.
Sorry, but I've been a big fan of L&O for a long time, and have actually found it to be refreshing in the way it handles PC-ness. The original L&O usually does a pretty good job of handling diversity amongst its perps, I've always thought. L&O:SVU, on the other hand, is almost always overtly political, I will give you that.
I was thinking of writing my own show about a cooky detective with an outrageous since of smell. I was going to call it – wait for it, wait for it – Law and Odor.
Since we're trashing things about L&O, a couple times every episode a character will, very awkwardly, rattle off a series of statistics to justify,or explain something.
What is "same-sex attraction disorder"? Would you care to point this illness out in the DSM-IV?
By the way, I actually have a DSM-IV on my bookshelf, and I can assure you that the "disorder" you are citing doesn't actually exist.
Not fair. Occasionally the villain is a black person who was driven to crime by the oppressive white culture populated by greedy Christians.
I have, and I do — love all the British Stuff (Monty Python, Being Served, Red Dwarf, etc.). I kind of liked Catherine Tate on her show, though I saw her as a lesser version of Jennifer Saunders. But I hated her character on Doctor Who. She was obnoxious, all she did was yell, she prejudged everything and then lashed out at other characters — who just cowhered before her whether she was right or not, and she never said anything nice. She's the first companion (other than Adric or Ace) (yeah, I'm a Who geek) that I would have tossed out of the Tardis.
What is "same-sex attraction disorder"? Would you care to point this illness out in the DSM-IV
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I can't. In 1973 participants to the APA conference who were motivated by ideology than hard scientific proof had all mention of homosexuality as a disorder removed.
Read the true story of politics trumping science at http://www.naarth.com
Active homosexuals and those with latent homosexual, lesbian or bi-sexual tendencies have a psychological disorder that can be overcome with varying methods of counselling, education and self-examination. They can go on to lead happier, more fulfilled lifes and certainly more physically healthy ones given the rates of HIV/AIDs, Gonorreah, Syphilis, oral cancers, HPV among others.
By the way is "homophobia" still a term used by clinical psychologists to mean "an inordinate, clinically severe fear or hatred of homosexuals"?
Nice to see how "homophobia" got co-opted to mean mere principled opposition to it on moral grounds or the believe that, despite politics, many respectable psychiatrists, psychologists, psychoanlyists, counsellors and others believe (like always) that it is a treatable condition one can overcome or grow out of.
Depends on the year of publishing for your edition doesn"t it…….
Also Pete: even a high school forensics (debating) coach would disqualify your comment to me because you predicated your argument on the "Appeal to authority fallacy" – just because a malady or disorder has been taken out of a medical diagnostic manual does not mean all physicians agree it was a good decision.
Next you'll tell me that the majority who believe homosexuality to not be normative psychological behaviour makes your argument too ("appeal to the majority")
If you feel it is perfectly normal psychological behavior and no overbearing moms, distant fathers, child sexual abuse or identity conflict issues contribute to it or, that it is permanent let us know and why you believe this.
Hint: all the "I was born homosexual" biological research has hit a dead end. Especially the twin studies and hypothalamus ones.
Its a disorder. If you disagree tell us why it isn't without merely citing its recision from a book as your proof.
As I understand it according to a Discover article I read on the study of homosexuality in animals the homosexual behavior is linked to a gene. If you do not have this gene you are heterosexual. However if you do have it you can engage in honosexuality. The article states however that animals with the gene are as likely to be homosexual as they are heterosexual.
Based on this science where would we put this "disorder" today. I do think the activity can be thought of as a "defect" but I am not sure it has anything to do with mental nature. Attraction could be based on hormones so it may be chemical in nature. The "defect" is simply no proclivity to mate. If every member of a species were like this then the species would likely end. The problem is that the politics will interfere with any real scientific research into this. This is the real danger of Political Correctness. It defines what scientific discoveries can be made. In this way liberals are like the Pope's that censured Galileo and Copernicus.
You understand it wrong. Homosexual-like behaviour has been observed in only a very few examples in a very small number of species.
There are social reasons by bullied and dominated chimps might seek out only male or only female company or why they do not mature psycho-sexually. To date, no genetic cause for human or the very rare homosexual acts of animals has been found. The Discovery article may have interviewed someone who believes it possible this gene will be found but no such gene exists.
Even if a gene were to exist it would be immoral to not try to resist it as some other's resist the gene that makes them more predisposed to alcholism because homosexuality is wrong, a mortal sin and not beneficial to and ordered society — especially if they are allowed the privilege (its not a right) of marriage and adoption.
Not sure Copernicus was treated all that badly, but the Galileo situation is more complex than just "censure" which is not even an ecclesiastical term. Galileo went too far in his assertions and was advised to reword
them by Robert Bellarmine and others. Still, a partial apology was in order.
The Wire is awesome! But if you're beefing with L&O because it's too liberal, I don't know how you could possibly enjoy The Wire.
<a href=”http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1719872,…” target=”_blank”>http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1719872,…
Heh. I liked Donna Noble better than Martha. It was pathetic to watch her try to catch the doctor's eye.
But Martha was in my favorite episode: the two-part Human Nature episode.
The Comic Relief sketch with Catherine Tate and David Tennant is one of the funniest things I've seen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxB1gB6K-2A
I liked Donna because she wasn't afraid to tell the Doctor off.
According to this week's Radio Times, the episode was actually a remake of an existing American episode. That explains why it follows the template so exactly.
Update: Actually, the article linked to above says the same thing – "All the scripts are taken from the original Law & Order show".
Zah? Pretty much the entire mechanism of L&O is
1) cops find bad guy
2) naive liberal justice system tries to let bad guy off on a technicality
3) ADA finds a cunning way to foil liberal justice system and put dirtbag away
Except for the 30% of the time when it turns out the defendant was covering for his son or something.
And, as other posters have pointed out, they've had pro-gun rights, anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia, anti-immigration, (&etc) message episodes.
Every now and then the killer is a businessman, sure, but just having a villain who happens to be a businessman != anti-corporate sentiment. The last two eps I saw both had prominent anti-union themes, and vindictive union members were the killers.
1) If you want to base it on the politics of the creators, read that link I posted.
http://prorev.com/2008/03/wires-writers-come-out-...
(sorry, the direct time link won't work in these comments for some reason)
And The Wire was not "based on the memoirs of a real detective." Ed Burns, a former detective (and signatory of that jury strike piece, I might add), was a writer/producer on the show, and there are real people who Avon and Omar are loosely based on, but it's not "based on a true story" in any real sense. (Not that I don't love it, I'm just being clear here).
2) "The Wire is one of the very few shows that actually show the justifications for why law enforcement needs to fight drug dealers. The cops are the good guys, the criminals are the bad guys" If this is really what you got out of that show you must've been watching under the influence of some of that Pandemic.
re: L&O's "ripped from the headlines" episodes
You guys should love those! You're not going to find more "celebutard" hate in any other primetime drama.
Hey, the bright spot is the Law and Order has four scripts they regurgitate over and again so it won't be too difficult for the audience's intellect at home and abroad.
I did some work on Law and Order way, way, way back when Michael Moriarty was the DA and Law an Order was actually worth something, unfortunately he left and the show went into the crapper.
So, ordinarily I'd love to jump on the bandwagon and trash someone that I perceive to be VERY liberal from the posts that I remember. However, in this case I can't. I've watched the whole series of "The Wire" and while I absolutely loved it, it was fairly liberal. Sure it did take steps toward being a little more balanced such as showing the cops as the good guys fighting against a liberal system etc. But the driving theme of the, at times, fallible yet noble Tommy Carcetti stalwart Democrat trying to crusade against the Republicans running the state to 'just help the good people of Baltimore' was enough to make me wretch. Not to mention the whole them of season 4 with "Hamsterdam" implying that all the drug dealers and murderers really needed was a hug, of sorts, to make everything all better was a bit laughable. And there are plenty more examples of liberalism throughout the show. I just don't have time to list them all.
Check out security commercials…always white victim….always white male burglars.
I don't know if Hollywood and TV production companies are naive, just plain stupid or simply so steeped in political correctness/ideology that they don't care that a large part of their proposed audience holds them up to ridicule.
I don't watch L&O anymore. The only reason to watch a mystery is to try and figure out "who done it". Watching L&O is like rereading a book for the twenty-fifth time. Not much new there.
Blacks do not commit crimes — even black drug dealers.
Blacks are always the victims of white murderers.
Liberals are good.
Conservatives are bad.
Religious people are nuts or murderers.
Doctors get rich by knocking off their patients.
Big Pharma makes poisons.
Businessmen are vicious scum who cheat you and if they can't cheat you, kill you.
Frankly, it's boring. And when it isn't boring, it's comedy. L&O isn't supposed to be a comedy.
excellent point. yet another chapter in the sad but true saga of the decline and fall of western civilization…
Yep, that Freema Ageyman is a doll! And she was exceptional in the Doctor Who two-parter "Human Nature" and "Family of Blood."
Nothing exists unless it's in DSM
The obvious white businessman killer, pedophile, rapist, is getting to be a real joke on network t.v…….closer, mentalist, etc…commywood is impotent when there are no surprises.
good point- I'm not sure they care at this point; which is why we need films to be made elsewhere in the US!
The take away on L&O is that they haven't had an original idea in many years. Dick Wolff is the consumate retread.
That aside, it is hard to find a bad minority type in the show.
"Human Nature" was amazing, and Martha's role was both heartbreaking and solid. As for catching the Doctor's eye, he kind of started it, and she did eventually move on. Her reappearances during the Donna Noble season and her role in Torchwood show a capable young woman, and an extremely attractive one. I hope L&O will not be a commitment that wouldn't allow her to revisit the Whoverse.
Loving the new Doctor Who, tho I understand David Tennant is not going to be around much longer. I guess the next time he regenerates he will have to change into a new actor!
There was an episode last year where a young Muslim girl was killed. They brought up honor killings and the first suspect was her brother but then they predictable switched over to the racist white kids in the neighborhood. When the killer was revealed to be her brother I was floored. Not because the mystery was that dificult, but a prime time crime drama with a Muslim hate crime? I mean, they've even had the Amish kill people, but that was the first time I saw a Muslim killer.
I thought it was always the recognizably famous guest star that always did it/
L&O Until about 2002 for the most part was pretty good. Then it went down hill. It has been a total disaster since the guy who played Lenny on the show died. Now it's nothing but moralizing and ripped from the headlines (does L&O even still have writers or just people who watch cable news and make notes?) crap.
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