Law & Order: Criminal Intent: No nod, no wink

The deeply troubling first part of the Law & Order: Criminal Intent premiere, "Loyalty," aired on Tuesday, and I finally had the time to watch it. Spoilers ahead. You've been warned.

I approached "Loyalty, Part 1" with some trepidation, and rightly so: if any of my other favorite TV shows -- regardless of network or genre -- decided to replace over half the cast in one fell swoop like this, I would be equally nervous (see: Doctor Who's changing of the guard). With this two-part premiere, though, the swoop isn't as fell as it could be; Goren and Eames are still digging into a double homicide as we open season nine, and while Captain Danny Ross is having some unusual discussions about creating a police force in Somalia, he's still around and still in charge...for now. The episode starts out the same way any other would: meet the players, find the bodies, get the cops on the case, visit Dr. Rodgers for the autopsy results, then start digging into the victims' lives. From there, however, we get into arms dealing and East African politics and that's where I start to get a little lost. The breakdown is this: as far as I can tell, there are three things going on here: 1) the Major Case homicide investigation, 2) an FBI investigation that puts Captain Ross undercover with unscrupulous (even murderous) arms dealers, and 3) what seems to be a series of shootings to avenge a sheikh killed by the arms dealers, or to ensure the weapons make it to Africa? The motives of the sheikh's children in New York aren't all that clear yet, but one thing is certain: it is a man connected to the dead sheikh who shoots and kills Captain Danny Ross.

This case seems unusually complicated for Criminal Intent, which often focuses more on the interplay between the suspects and police than on the nitty-gritty of the crime itself. By the end of this episode, Ross is dead, Goren, Eames, and Nichols have lost their about-to-become-cooperative suspect to the FBI, a heat-seeking missile exploded in the middle of New York (or New Jersey, maybe?) without anyone noticing, and I still wasn't entirely sure what was going on.

I was surprised by how hard it was to watch Danny Ross get shot; I've never been particularly attached to his character after being very fond of his predecessor, Captain James Deakins (Jamey Sheridan, who is about 80% of why I still watch Trauma), but it was tough to see him killed so quickly. No fanfare, no sentimentality, and unflinching. As it should be -- that's not what L&O is about. The best-worst part about Ross's death was seeing how upset Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers (Leslie Hendrix) was by it. There was a heavily-hinted-at relationship between Ross and Rodgers in seasons past, and her distress at both his death and being denied access to his body made his death hit home. Hendrix, Kathryn Erbe, and Vincent D'Onofrio were all very good in that particular scene. It was nice to see a little of the old Bobby Goren, fighting for access to his captain and the right to work the case, and it always gets me when the normally reserved Eames gets emotional. There were a few moments in this scene and the rest of the episode that didn't ring true, and there were several times when it sounded to me like D'Onofrio was just reciting lines, but I'm inclined to say the writing didn't quite get to where it needed to be -- one of the things that consistently bothers me about Criminal Intent is clunky dialogue. It's tough to get great performances when the material isn't quite at the same level as the actors.

Finally, there's been a lot said and written about the major cast shakeups going on this season, with regulars Vincent D'Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe (who have been on the show since season one) leaving, along with the Major Case Squad's captain for the past three seasons, Eric Bogosian, and new cast members Saffron Burrows and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio filling in around Jeff Goldblum's Detective Zack Nichols. To be perfectly honest, I was leery of Jeff "Notorious Show-Killer" Goldblum to begin with, but he won me over last season, and I'm dismayed by the fans who refuse to give him a chance. Those who scream in capslock that they refuse to watch the show anymore and will leave with D'Onofrio and Erbe just seem unreasonable to me. A revolving door of detectives has been part of the Law & Order franchise from the beginning. Goren & Eames (and Stabler & Benson on SVU, for that matter) are kind of anomalous when you look at the original series, which has seen plenty of actor turnover in the last twenty years -- just check out the chart of L&O characters from the Wikipedia article. I'm not saying I'm thrilled to see them go: I'm not. I've never been a fan of Saffron Burrows, and Kathryn Erbe's Detective Eames has been my favorite character for the last several seasons, so it's disappointing to know that it will be Burrows as Serena Stevens and not Eames that we'll see around the MCS squad room. In a perfect world, I would have liked to see Eames and Nichols partnered up; I thoroughly enjoyed watching them work together in last season's "Major Case" and "Revolution." However, we don't live in a perfect world, I'm not the Criminal Intent showrunner, and I'll have to live with the changes, just like everyone else. Dealing with writing, casting, and production decisions that make you unhappy is part of being a TV fan. You have to trust that the people in the production offices are doing what they think is going to work for the show (even if those of us on our couches have our doubts).

While waiting for the conclusion of "Loyalty" and with an eye toward the rest of season nine, I'm adopting a cautiously optimistic outlook. I'm hoping that their respective departures will be true to the Goren's and Eames's characters -- since characters are what USA Network is all about -- and that the remaining viewers and the network give Goldblum and Burrows a chance.