I just love this show. I have always loved cop shows and whodunnits but often struggled due to the stupidity of the writing. I could never get into stuff life Hawaii 5-0, NCIS, or the later installments of CSI because I always found the characters to be dumb as well as the writing and the forced action sequences... But this show is different. You don't have to memorize 12 faceless brainiacs in the lab but just two detectives. One is a classic one and the other is Vincent D'Onofrio who is the real deal and moving force behind the whole series. His performance often brought me thrills, then to tears or unexpected sudden bursts of joy. He is a true master of his art and one of the most unappreciated actors alive. So thank you, Vincent and Dick Wolf, for making cops intelligent again, paying homage to the classic detectives like Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot and paving the way for shows like Monk, Psych or the Mentalist.

While this show had been good to me for many years, and would make a good show to marathon on Netflix, this show is simply trash police propaganda, as with all other shows such as this. I will never watch this show, or any show like this, again. While at one time it was good to me and good for me, it's plainly propaganda for the police and other hands of government that I want no part of. That negates anything else this show has to offer. This belongs in the trash and in the past, as do the rest of the shows like this. This show is bathed in grey; grey filters, grey locations, grey characters and an overall grey aesthetic that brings down an already downer of a show.

This is a spin off of the popular TV series 'Law & Order', except it doesn't follow its formula. This show follows NYPD Major Case Squad's Detective Robert Goren (Vincent D'Onofrio) and his partner Alexandra Eames (Kathryn Erbe). The biggest difference is to concentrate on these two detectives. In that way, it is much more reminiscent of police procedural in the past.Vincent D'Onofrio created an uniquely memorable character. Kathryn Erbe provides a great calming presence. Together they have a great watchable chemistry. It lasted 10 seasons.

I've only sinned once in my life and that was with a girl named Mildred, but she was exceptionally dumb and didn't know it was a sin anyway. Still, I'd like to make a confession."Law and Order", the original series was a real winner in its first decade or so. I am a huge fan, and that's the confession. I had to make it because this is a Dick Wolf product too -- and it's awful."Law and Order" smacked of the New York City streets. The diesel exhaust hung in the air in layers. And the acting was unusually realistic for an ordinary TV cop series. The detectives could argue briefly over issues like abortion. Most of the characters didn't even LOOK like Hollywood actors, though most of them were. I suppose Chris Noth was young and handsome but was anyone else? Would you call Michael Moriarty handsome? Or Steven Hill? No. No, you wouldn't.In "Law and Order: Criminal Intent," most of what made "Law and Order" outstanding is thrown away. Instead of prowling the ghetto, these investigators deal with the up-trodden. There is some scam involving expensive paintings, for instance, and, surprise, one of the detectives knows all about expensive paintings -- just as a well-paid screenwriter might.What makes it worse is that the series belongs to Vincent D'Onofrio's character and he's the guy who knows it all. Oh, he doesn't come right out and say so. But he knows all right. He sort of sidles up to the criminals and reveals bit by bit that he's a few steps ahead of them.Still worse, "Law and Order" was as exemplary as it was because it focused on the investigation almost exclusively. No back stories, no love affairs, no histories, no family problems to speak of, although they were given just enough screen time for us to be aware of them. "Law and Order: Criminal Intent" is far more traditional in spending so much time with the perps. I don't particularly want to know about the perps and their problems, not in a TV series lasting less than an hour per episode. It's a zero sum game. You linger over the perps, you lose the cops.And -- well, here's another confession -- I've only seen a handful of episodes but the structure is almost identical. At the end, one of the criminals is brought into the interrogation room, surrounded by investigators, including D'Onofrio and his major domo, Kathryn Erbe.D'Onofrio begins a quietly insinuating reconstruction of the crime, enumerating the evidence against the perp, then begins to sling crime-scene photos in from of him or her, bends over and begins shouting the kind of come-clean demands that would activate the stretch reflex in a dog's hind leg. I wouldn't break down and sob out a confession. I'd tell him to go perform an anatomical impossibility. I wouldn't really, but I'd feel like it.It was a big disappointment. (When did crime labs become so dark?) Maybe the other episodes are an improvement over the handful that I watched. I hope so. Oh, Richard, thou hast robbed me of my illusions.