Post by Naj on Sept 22, 2004 12:16:52 GMT -5
Blonde Invasion
Blonde invasion
September 18, 2004
Kathryn Morris in Cold Case.
Cop this. Forensic science proves the link between TV crime and a bottle of bleach, writes Ruth Ritchie.
I just don't get those Jerry Bruckheimer blondes. The appeal of his blondes, like his shows, eludes me. CSI is just plain silly. Nerdy forensic scientists don't carry guns and interview suspects in the real world. They do for Jerry Bruckheimer's purposes. CSI fans are a gullible breed, and easy to please. They are prepared to believe that any case can be solved with some little blue torches from Toys 'R' Us, a strand of hair and a pair of tweezers. They are also prepared to believe that by relocating the crimes, hairs and torches to a different city - say, Miami - that it's a different show. It's not. It's the same ludicrous show, full of minuscule clues and stringy, boring Bruckheimer blondes, in a different location.
The writing in all of his shows clanks like a rattling window. Those actors deserve their various award nominations because nobody should be able to utter that stupid dialogue, carry their little gismos and lick their juicy lips for an hour every week, with a straight face.
The newest Bruckheimer blonde is detective Lilly Rush (Kathryn Morris) the star of Cold Case (Tuesday, Nine). She has a heart of gold, a mind like a steel trap, a tinny ability to solve the unsolvable. Lilly is a metal detector's wet dream. She also spent the entire pilot biting her ruby red wet lips and dazzling suspects with glimpses of her brilliant arctic teeth. She doesn't actually solve crimes. She just blinds murderers into submission with her choppers. The way she salivated over her first prey, it was difficult to tell if lovely Lilly was going to arrest them or digest them.
Like most Bruckheimer blondes, she's nearly but not really pretty. Her carefully quaffed dirty blonde hair-do screams of independence, defiance and buckets of product that can never solve crimes against fine bleached hair. We're supposed to care about Lilly and intuit a little darkness in her back-story while she sheds a little light on the darkness of a crime gone cold. (Bruckheimer cops talk like this, really.)
Cold Case is simply this year's model, another reworking of TV's heftiest genre, the cop show. It's not a groundbreaker like Hill Street Blues or a crowd pleaser like Charlie's Angels. The gimmick this outing is time travel. Creator/writer Meredith Stiehm has successfully tapped into our fascination with unsolved crimes that linger on into legend. The open-ended nature of a crime without resolution can catapult us back to our memory of the times. This is where Cold Case works best. Any trip back to the '70s or '80s will be a satisfying one for a Bruckheimer audience so easily satisfied by a trip to Miami.
Not quite a Bruckheimer babe, our own Lisa McCune has returned to her blonde cop roots with Forensic Investigators (Seven, Wednesday). This production has all the current ingredients for success: old cases, forensic evidence, re-enactments, real cops, special effects and a blonde. This week's shocker, a 20-year-old case macabre enough to have taken place in Adelaide, revisits the ever-spooky murderous neighbourhoods of Queanbeyan. Six murders in all, including three sisters, two tiny children and a hapless de facto, by a madman with a .22 and a can of petrol.
The Canberra cops who solved two apparently unconnected crimes are excellent un-Bruckheimer talent and, even out of uniform, McCune manages to lend some sombre cop-credibility to her walking/talking role in the show.
Another monumental blonde has been making nice with the common folk of series television in the splashy return of The Practice. Sharon Stone, who turns in mad performances on and off screen these days, lends a glamorous intensity to David E. Kelley's vintage legal drama. In its first seasons, The Practice was compulsory viewing. The darkness that Bruckheimer shows only achieve with lighting, was woven into every character and storyline. Now The Practice is a vehicle for movie stars who appear to have given up their day jobs.
It can't have been a cheap package: Chris O'Donnell, Sharon Stone and James Spader. No wonder Camryn Manheim's character was drunk for most of the second episode; her office studded with movie star eye-candy.
Spader, having made a career of playing young creepy guys, has landed a plum role as a middle-aged creepy guy.
Blondes-in-waiting: Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton could learn a lot from Stone. She may be nuttier than a baklava, but her Joan of Arc-like exit on Monday night left this viewer wanting more. The chances of either of them eliciting an encore are slimmer than a Bruckheimer blonde.
Blonde invasion
September 18, 2004
Kathryn Morris in Cold Case.
Cop this. Forensic science proves the link between TV crime and a bottle of bleach, writes Ruth Ritchie.
I just don't get those Jerry Bruckheimer blondes. The appeal of his blondes, like his shows, eludes me. CSI is just plain silly. Nerdy forensic scientists don't carry guns and interview suspects in the real world. They do for Jerry Bruckheimer's purposes. CSI fans are a gullible breed, and easy to please. They are prepared to believe that any case can be solved with some little blue torches from Toys 'R' Us, a strand of hair and a pair of tweezers. They are also prepared to believe that by relocating the crimes, hairs and torches to a different city - say, Miami - that it's a different show. It's not. It's the same ludicrous show, full of minuscule clues and stringy, boring Bruckheimer blondes, in a different location.
The writing in all of his shows clanks like a rattling window. Those actors deserve their various award nominations because nobody should be able to utter that stupid dialogue, carry their little gismos and lick their juicy lips for an hour every week, with a straight face.
The newest Bruckheimer blonde is detective Lilly Rush (Kathryn Morris) the star of Cold Case (Tuesday, Nine). She has a heart of gold, a mind like a steel trap, a tinny ability to solve the unsolvable. Lilly is a metal detector's wet dream. She also spent the entire pilot biting her ruby red wet lips and dazzling suspects with glimpses of her brilliant arctic teeth. She doesn't actually solve crimes. She just blinds murderers into submission with her choppers. The way she salivated over her first prey, it was difficult to tell if lovely Lilly was going to arrest them or digest them.
Like most Bruckheimer blondes, she's nearly but not really pretty. Her carefully quaffed dirty blonde hair-do screams of independence, defiance and buckets of product that can never solve crimes against fine bleached hair. We're supposed to care about Lilly and intuit a little darkness in her back-story while she sheds a little light on the darkness of a crime gone cold. (Bruckheimer cops talk like this, really.)
Cold Case is simply this year's model, another reworking of TV's heftiest genre, the cop show. It's not a groundbreaker like Hill Street Blues or a crowd pleaser like Charlie's Angels. The gimmick this outing is time travel. Creator/writer Meredith Stiehm has successfully tapped into our fascination with unsolved crimes that linger on into legend. The open-ended nature of a crime without resolution can catapult us back to our memory of the times. This is where Cold Case works best. Any trip back to the '70s or '80s will be a satisfying one for a Bruckheimer audience so easily satisfied by a trip to Miami.
Not quite a Bruckheimer babe, our own Lisa McCune has returned to her blonde cop roots with Forensic Investigators (Seven, Wednesday). This production has all the current ingredients for success: old cases, forensic evidence, re-enactments, real cops, special effects and a blonde. This week's shocker, a 20-year-old case macabre enough to have taken place in Adelaide, revisits the ever-spooky murderous neighbourhoods of Queanbeyan. Six murders in all, including three sisters, two tiny children and a hapless de facto, by a madman with a .22 and a can of petrol.
The Canberra cops who solved two apparently unconnected crimes are excellent un-Bruckheimer talent and, even out of uniform, McCune manages to lend some sombre cop-credibility to her walking/talking role in the show.
Another monumental blonde has been making nice with the common folk of series television in the splashy return of The Practice. Sharon Stone, who turns in mad performances on and off screen these days, lends a glamorous intensity to David E. Kelley's vintage legal drama. In its first seasons, The Practice was compulsory viewing. The darkness that Bruckheimer shows only achieve with lighting, was woven into every character and storyline. Now The Practice is a vehicle for movie stars who appear to have given up their day jobs.
It can't have been a cheap package: Chris O'Donnell, Sharon Stone and James Spader. No wonder Camryn Manheim's character was drunk for most of the second episode; her office studded with movie star eye-candy.
Spader, having made a career of playing young creepy guys, has landed a plum role as a middle-aged creepy guy.
Blondes-in-waiting: Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton could learn a lot from Stone. She may be nuttier than a baklava, but her Joan of Arc-like exit on Monday night left this viewer wanting more. The chances of either of them eliciting an encore are slimmer than a Bruckheimer blonde.
