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Worst TV Show of the Week

Law and Order: Criminal Intent on NBC

On Law and Order: Criminal Intent (Mondays, 9:00 p.m. ET), stories aren’t just ripped from the headlines.  They’re beaten over the head with a blunt instrument and left for dead.  The August 3^rd episode convolutes the economic crisis into an incestuous, holy-rolling, murder-suicide rampage.  And in the process, the series earns the title of Worst TV Show of the Week for its violent content. 

 The episode opens with a father - Paul Devildis – watching his daughter perform in her high school’s production of Cyrano De Bergerac.  He gazes lustily at her heaving, corseted bosom, triggering his religious fanaticism.   He leaves the play and rants inside his car.  “Seeing her,” he says to no one in particular, “I heard the revelations, arrayed in scarlet, decked in golden stones, offering abominations of filth, of fornication. But I will save her.  I'll save them all!”  Paul proceeds to his brother-in-law’s home.  While Paul sips coffee in the kitchen, the bloody corpse of his sister-in-law rests on the floor.  When his brother-in-law comes home, Paul bashes his head in with a ball-peen hammer.  Blood sprays across the refrigerator and paints Paul’s face. 

Then Paul learns that his daughter’s lesbian drama teacher plans to stage a play by Tennessee Williams – a known homosexual.  In order to preserve his daughter’s innocence from the drama department’s supposed gay agenda, he bludgeons the drama teacher. 

Later, it is revealed that in the wake of the sub-prime meltdown Paul was fired from his job at a local bank.  Incidentally, it is the same bank which now threatens to foreclose on his brother-in-law’s house.  Murdering his brother-in-law was Paul’s demented way of fixing the problem.  Retaliating against the bank, Paul mails a pipe bomb to his boss – Paul’s version of a “restructuring plan” - killing several employees and injuring many others.  A survivor identifies Paul as the bomber, leading the police to launch a statewide manhunt.

The police search the Devildis home and discover that Paul murdered his wife.  However, Paul and his daughter are missing.  As Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac, Paul plans to kill his own daughter.  But Detective Goren talks him out of it, forcing Paul to realize that his actions have been evil. 

It’s understandable that a TV show would turn to real life for story ideas.  After all, it is competing with numerous versions of itself.  But it is shameful that amid this national crisis spirituality is shown in such a perverted way, not as a source of solace but as the impetus for gruesome violence.  For this reason Law and Order: Criminal Intent has been named Worst TV Show of the Week.