Re: Law & Order: Los Angeles: "Echo Park" - Oct. 6 - Grading & Discuss
Much better than last week, but I've zapped this show off my DVR recording list. The prospect of one disconnected case after another just doesn't interest me - I just find the procedural format boring.
For Skeet's wife to possibly be a dirty cop (and the question of how much he cares and what he's prepared to do about it) is possibly interesting, but I don't know enough about either character to know what to think about this development. It's all happening in a vacuum and the % of time the show is likely to spend on character development that might make it meaningful is too low; it'll take too much time to get to know these characters to be worth investing the time in.
They could ramp up with the characters more quickly if the dialogue wasn't so utilitarian and flat, but instead was used cleverly to reveal character. Then by now I'd have a better sense of: how much of a Boy Scout is Skeet? How likely is it that his wife was a dirty cop and/or just did one bad thing in the past? What is the basis for their marriage - do they really know each other, even after presumably many years, or is it possible that this is one of those sad cases of spouses realizing their strangers to each other? Dialogue that hints at such things after two episodes wouldn't require that much extra effort on the writers' part, but clearly that isn't their priority.
Plus I have no idea if or when the Skeet's-dirty-copy-wife plotline will ever be revisited, or if it ever will be. Next week will be some fribble about surfers, not interested.
How does Skeet Ulrich keep getting work? He makes Robert Beltran look like a mega star actor.
He does a lot better with sf/f shows where there's more drama inherent in the situation and character -
Miracles and
Jericho - and it's a welcome relief if the actor isn't adding much to the emotional content. But with the stripped down
L&O style, a flat actor really isn't that good of an idea. Then again, if the audience wants stripped-down dialogue, plotting and characters, maybe a flat actor is also a good thing?
I really don't understand what the appeal of any of this is, so why single out Skeet? Everything about this show is happening in the emotional equivalent of Flatland. It's like some weird sophorific parallel universe. Maybe this show is for people who feel exhausted by real life and find it comforting to have everything dialed way down so they can zone out before bedtime.
It's hard for me to watch the show without feeling like I'm cheating on Jack.
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