Madeleine McCann Stars In US Crime Show
MADELEINE McCann Watch: Anorak’s at-a-glance look at Madeleine McCann in the news –
How entertaining have you found the disappearance of Madeleine McCann? Is it better of worse than Lost, the show with no end? For some people the tale of a child vanished could to with more plot structure and a decent pay off at the finale, maybe a high-speed car chase or a fistfight in the courtroom.
Playing armchair detective is great fun but the story of Our Maddie has always been a single-thread narrative, lacking the multi-layering that TV executives enjoy. So here’s an episode of Law & Order to shows all parties how it should be done:
Law & Order: Criminal Intent has always been treated like the unwanted stepchild of the Law & Order universe, even though it features one of TV’s most eccentric and oddly hypnotic performances.
The brainchild of Law & Order creator Dick Wolf and Montreal native Rene Balcer, a former Concordia University English major and one-time staff writer for the (now-defunct) Montreal Star, early episodes of L&O: CI played like an updated version of Columbo, in which a dishevelled-but-brilliant detective, played by Vincent D’Onofrio, plays cat-and-mouse games with ingenious criminals (almost) as smart as he is.
In recent seasons, as Balcer left the show – to help revive the original Law & Order – L&O: CI has adopted a more melodramatic tone. Tonight’s repeat, from June, is loosely based on the infamous Madeleine McCann case, in which a three- year-old girl vanished from a holiday apartment in Portugal while her parents were dining in a restaurant just metres away.
Law & Order: CI – based on an original idea by Madeleine McCann Inc.
In the L&O: CI version, Goren and his partner, Det. Alex Eames (Kathryn Erbe), are investigating a hotel robbery when they learn a toddler has been abducted at the same time a thief was allegedly breaking into people’s rooms.
A robbery. You see – layers.
Here, similarities to the McCann case end – there’s a jaw-dropping twist at the end that feels more like the product of a TV writer’s imagination than something that could happen in real life…
Bring it on – the police are out of ideas…
Posted: 23rd, August 2009 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews Comments (25) | TrackBack | Permalink
