Post by TVFan on Nov 19, 2004 14:34:40 GMT -5
TV Guide critic Matt Roush wrote a gushing review of "It's Raining Men" in one of his recent dispatches. Here's the link and text:
Matt's Dispatch
November 15, 2004
The best episodes of CBS's terrific crime drama Cold Case not only revisit long-unsolved murders but serve as a topical time tunnel to explore social conventions of an earlier era. A perfect example of this was Sunday's first-rate episode, involving the 1983 murder of a gay crusader-activist who made enemies by promoting AIDS awareness in the early days of the disease's spread. The hour ended in the present with a sweepingly romanticized wedding of two gay men (one of the grooms was the HIV-positive boyfriend of the victim).
Wonder what the so-called moral crusaders who would like to put homosexuality back in the closet made of this courageous and compelling episode? (They're probably organizing boycotts as I type.) Watching the episode took me back to 1983 in several ways — not only in how it re-created the tragic period when AIDS was first entering the public consciousness (with little help from the government), but also in how it reminded me of when I was first starting out in this business, a time when any mainstream movie or TV show that dealt with gay issues or AIDS made headline news.
Such story lines are no longer nearly as startling, although the politicization of gay issues is as incendiary as ever. Which makes this episode especially noteworthy. To present a gay marriage as matter-of-fact and celebratory is almost revolutionary in a year when bigotry reared its ugly head with such self-righteous force in ballot boxes nationwide.
Cold Case is not by nature a controversial series, but its approach to solving crimes is deeply humanistic as each case rips back layers of secrets, often within families, to get at the facts. This week's family tragedy, likened to the "prodigal son" parable, showed the deadly consequences of bigotry, when a father shunned his son and a brother turned on his sibling rather than face and accept the truth.
In all respects, this was a much more satisfying and memorable hour of drama than last week's exploitative and overreaching Law & Order, which spun out a wild case inspired by last summer's surprise "coming out" of New Jersey's gay ex-governor, James McGreevey. In this scenario, a governor was exposed as gay after his wife was murdered at a public event by a closeted political benefactor, and because the murderer's "spouse" was deemed a material witness, prosecutor Jack McCoy sought a judicial referendum on gay marital rights to compel him to testify. All in a slapdash, unconvincing hour that, as is often the case on this show these days, failed to render any of the players as human, complex and empathetic as Cold Case does almost effortlessly. By comparison, Law & Order's attempt at topicality felt only like a cheap stunt.
Matt's Dispatch
November 15, 2004
The best episodes of CBS's terrific crime drama Cold Case not only revisit long-unsolved murders but serve as a topical time tunnel to explore social conventions of an earlier era. A perfect example of this was Sunday's first-rate episode, involving the 1983 murder of a gay crusader-activist who made enemies by promoting AIDS awareness in the early days of the disease's spread. The hour ended in the present with a sweepingly romanticized wedding of two gay men (one of the grooms was the HIV-positive boyfriend of the victim).
Wonder what the so-called moral crusaders who would like to put homosexuality back in the closet made of this courageous and compelling episode? (They're probably organizing boycotts as I type.) Watching the episode took me back to 1983 in several ways — not only in how it re-created the tragic period when AIDS was first entering the public consciousness (with little help from the government), but also in how it reminded me of when I was first starting out in this business, a time when any mainstream movie or TV show that dealt with gay issues or AIDS made headline news.
Such story lines are no longer nearly as startling, although the politicization of gay issues is as incendiary as ever. Which makes this episode especially noteworthy. To present a gay marriage as matter-of-fact and celebratory is almost revolutionary in a year when bigotry reared its ugly head with such self-righteous force in ballot boxes nationwide.
Cold Case is not by nature a controversial series, but its approach to solving crimes is deeply humanistic as each case rips back layers of secrets, often within families, to get at the facts. This week's family tragedy, likened to the "prodigal son" parable, showed the deadly consequences of bigotry, when a father shunned his son and a brother turned on his sibling rather than face and accept the truth.
In all respects, this was a much more satisfying and memorable hour of drama than last week's exploitative and overreaching Law & Order, which spun out a wild case inspired by last summer's surprise "coming out" of New Jersey's gay ex-governor, James McGreevey. In this scenario, a governor was exposed as gay after his wife was murdered at a public event by a closeted political benefactor, and because the murderer's "spouse" was deemed a material witness, prosecutor Jack McCoy sought a judicial referendum on gay marital rights to compel him to testify. All in a slapdash, unconvincing hour that, as is often the case on this show these days, failed to render any of the players as human, complex and empathetic as Cold Case does almost effortlessly. By comparison, Law & Order's attempt at topicality felt only like a cheap stunt.
