Law and Order: Criminal Intent, the long-running spinoff of the recently canceled TV crime drama mainstay Law and Order, has on fairly regular occasions manifested the overt progressivist and anti-Christian bias of its forebear This week’s episode is one of the most blatant instances yet.

It’s a pity because the show, now broadcast on the USA Network, has interesting story lines and the central characters, NYC police detectives played by Jeff Goldblum and Saffron Burrows, are intelligent and fairly likable.

Unfortunately, this week’s story line is neither. In “Palimpsest,” detectives Nichols and Stevens investigate a case involving two wealthy Manhattan antiquarians who apparently killed each other in a sword-fighting duel. (That kind of insanely bizarre situation is common for the show.) Also involved in the story is the schizophrenic adult daughter of one of the dead men, whom Nichols used to date before her illness became manifest. (more…)

I’ve noticed a lot of my brothers and sisters on the right are up in arms at Law & Order: SVU after last week’s episode. I did not see the whole episode in question but did see a clip where a character played by John Larroquette mentions three well know conservative talk show hosts and calls them a cancer on the land.

Before I get rolling, in the spirit of full disclosure I will admit to being a Law & Order junkie. My DVR is full of my favorite Law & Order: Criminal Intent episodes, which is by far the strongest of the three series. I will also admit that in my mind Law & Order: SVU is to the Law & Order brand what Deep Space Nine was to the Star Trek brand. It is a weak cousin that may have been spreading the brand a little too thin. (more…)

“Family Values,” the most recent episode of “Law and Order: Criminal Intent,” returned to an issue the program often deals with in a less than flattering way: religion. The episode, which premiered last Sunday, ran true to form, at least on the surface.

But as I’ve often noted in the past (most recently here), getting too caught up in the surfaces of cultural products often causes one to fail to see their true meaning. That’s the case with “Family Values.”

Certainly the story seems calculated to make a particular religious belief look bad, specifically evangelical Christianity. It concerns a serial killer who is a evidently devout Christian. (And indeed, the numerous promos on the USA Network leading up to the airing of the episode highlighted that sensationalistic concept.) In addition, the episode’s title, “Family Values,” seems calculated to annoy evangelical Christians, in an obvious sardonic reference to former Vice President Dan Quayle’s most famous political quest. (more…)