Ticks

I finished a marathon this weekend…… and boy is my ass tired! That’s right, I watched all 26.2 hours of the USA Networks Law and Order –CI Marathon brought to you by the U.S Army and WWE Wraslin’ and pretty much no one else.

I’m pretty sure it wasn’t 26.2 hours, but after the fourth or fifth consecutive episode and the twenty-third or twenty fourth time that Vincent D’Onfrio bent at the waist and sent magic eye rays at the accused, well, it seemed like I had been sitting there for 26.2 hours.

Before I watched the “marathon” I think I liked the show more. It’s just that after a while watching D’Onfrio stomp all over the stage ACTING, made me tired. And woe to whatever actor that is unfortunate enough to be on stage with him while he is ACTING! The poor guy is ACTING just as fast as his little feet will carry him. It’s no wonder he was having problems with “exhaustion” last season, the poor guy hasn’t stopped ACTING at the top of his lungs in four years.

I like acting, acting is good but when an actor indulges himself with ACTING he is taking attention away from the script, it becomes a problem. I came to the conclusion that the character he plays isn’t as much a character has he is a collection of actorly ticks and business. Those are great, in moderation. I like to see actors and directors adding little humanizing touches to the performance, really finding ways to make the words on the paper a fully realized human being - but when the character is all ticks and business it’s a problem - the characterization gets in the way of the character and impedes it’s progress. I think the actor has been allowed to spend too much time concentrating on his characters character and needs to be reined in. I would enjoy Bobby Goran much more if he were less interesting. He’s supposed to be a cop; actor could try working on being a cop and less on the inner life Bobby Goran. It’s called subtext, he should explore it. We as an audience do not need to read it along with him. “Oh, look! He’s upset over that perp because she’s crazy like his Mama is crazy! Look how he’s squinched up his face! Now he’s being all broody! Next he’s going to leave out of the office and go bond with a homeless guy who before he got all psychotic and homeless was a Yale professor of Literature!! And has the answer he’s looking for!. Every damn episode.

His co-star seems to have gone the other direction, her character seems to exists mostly on paper, and seems to do very little more then stand to the side and “act” the stage directions “ALEX walks to door and looks pensive, ALEX picks up PHONE perhaps her subtext is even more crazy than VDOs. Maybe her subtext is about how she is so rage filled she can barely speak and it renders her unable to move at will as well. Whatever but maybe they could have her show us that.

Of course, it didn’t stop me from watching almost the whole damn thing. .

Sunday night, the actual, non –marathon version of the show aired. This season the guy who played Mike Logan from Law and Order, V1.0, until he got too big and important for mere network TV ( Chris Noth) – is back playing Mike Logan every other week so that VDO doesn’t end up with “exhaustion” again this season. I really, really enjoyed watching the guy do his thing. He played a Cop. He did Cop things and he seemed to recognize his character was a cop! He wasn’t pretending he was at some Method Actor Workshop, I never once was distracted by the actor ACTING. The actor was the character and he wasn’t waving big flags and going all character study on the audience. It was lovely.