sabotabby | Entries tagged with tv

The finale was...good, actually? Again, grading on a curve. It is still a bad show. But it's one of those bad shows where you get the sense that there is someone in the writers' room doing their best and sneaking all kinds of fun content in (see also: Archie singing IWW songs in Riverdale).

I had to check Reddit to see which case this was based on—it takes most of the episode to get to it. A seemingly unremarkable middle-aged travel agent drops dead in his driveway while his wife is out for a jog. It looks like a heart attack, but a cop in 44 Division suggests to Holness that she might want to get "her best" on it. Unfortunately the best that Toronto Police Services—sorry, TPD on the show for some reason—have are Graff and Bateman.

( spoilers )

And that's a wrap. I guess I'll have to find some good show to watch now.

Did you miss these? I've been busy with life and watching Andor.

Okay finally finally Law & Order Toronto is tackling Barry and Honey Sherman, which I have been looking forward to since they announced the show. It also tackled the Ontario Science Centre closure by the Ford government. The former crime is unsolved; the latter is out in the open despite Doug Ford still wandering around a free man somehow.

Anyway, the problem is once again that the actual cases are both more interesting than the plot we get here.

A pharma CEO and his philanthropist wife are murdered in what at first looks like a murder-suicide but isn't. With the company's sale to a larger company pending, there are a lot of potential suspects. She's also posed to look like a painting that she overpaid for at an auction, and that her best friend/interior designer wanted but couldn't afford. The designer, as well as the pharma CEO's brother, both have a decent motive to kill her. On top of that, she was on the board for the Ontario Science Centre, which a developer wanted to close in order to build luxury condos on it.

The killer is the designer's husband, and his motivation was that the developer bribed him to get rid of the philanthropist, who was only one holding out against the sale. Yawn. So really none of the reasons why the Shermans' murder is interesting, and none of the reasons why the closure of the OSC is criminal rather than simply corrupt.

Plot: ** (loses one point for each case that it's less interesting than)

Characters: * (Graff tries to ask Bateman out on a date and then fumbles the pass by also inviting her daughter)

Toronto: *** (Some good Toronto content, including a beautiful shot of Nathan Phillips Square and City Hall, a Sick Kids auction, and the controversies surrounding development in Don Mills. I'm less sure about the locations of the two houses and in general I don't know enough about rich people taste to be able to tell. Someone needs to invite me to the Bridal Path for research purposes)

Murder count: 12, not including the murder of the Ontario Science Centre and the happiness of many generations of children. The 2025 murder rate in Toronto remains at 11, so TORONTO'S WAR ON CRIME is officially more violent on the show than in real life.

Oh no! This was yet another good episode. If they keep this up I'm going to have to stop hate-watching and watch-watch it.

This one is about a tech CEO getting gunned down in a parking lot, along with a food delivery driver. The cops at the scene conclude that the latter was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but...

( you'll guess it before you click, just like I did. )

This one was pretty generic, to the point where I'm not sure what it's based on. A comedian playing the ~~Skydome~~ Rogers Centre for the first time drops dead, poisoned by digitalis.

( spoilers )

As I anxiously hit REFRESH REFRESH REFRESH on CBC's live updates, I am distracting myself with what else? Kind of the perfect episode for our political moment.

There's a hardworking concierge at a luxury building whose son has run afoul of some enforcer types after racking up a massive gambling debt. The son is now minus a few fingers and the dad is desperate to help him pay off his debts. One of the owners is nasty to him for even allowing his son through the front door, but Jack, another owner, comes to his defence. Later, he violently assaults the asshole owner and pleads guilty to aggravated assault. In maximum security prison, he stabs another inmate—an accountant jailed for a relatively minor offence—to death.

I would not have guessed what this one was based on by that introduction and neither will you.

( hint I am OBSESSED with this particular crime )

I am putting this entire thing under a cut. The episode has to do with the Filipino community, and by absolute coincidence, last night 11 Filipino people, including at least one child, were murdered in a horrific van attack in Vancouver. This episode aired a few weeks ago and has nothing to do with that but if you read anything about the murder and are worried about being re-traumatized, you might want to skip it.

( spoilers )

Shocker of shockers, this one was actually...good? Like not good-good but good for a Law & Order spinoff. It almost reached the level of mid, as the kids say.

It's based on the Harrison family murders, which is a case I know nothing about because it happened in Mississauga. Mississauga, famously, is not Toronto. I guess close enough for TV though. It starts off with the coked-up trophy wife of a rich guy old enough to be her dad. She gets clubbed on the head with an ashtray, then asphyxiated, after a night out with her new business pals and an argument with the rich guy. The opener breaks from the usual format in that we don't get a montage of people who'll be important later saying cryptic things, and we find out who the murderer is right away.

( don't worry there's still spoilers, also discussion of genocide )

This one's based on the Pearson International Gold Heist. There are two problems with it and one unforgivable sin. And it's an unforgivable sin that I happen to be very nerdy about.

( spoilers )

This one was clearly ripped off the Ashley Madison hack, with a weird reference to Rohinie Bisesar (the woman who stabbed a stranger to death in the PATH Shoppers Drug Mart). The latter is even name-checked in the show, which I'm kind of surprised is legal.

The plot is needlessly convoluted. A hacker gets the database for Not!Ashley!Madison Dot Com, and appears to be blackmailing either the owner or someone in the database. People in the database include a well-regarded judge and a pastor of a megachurch. She's about to reveal the identity of someone in the database to her married best friend, but will only do it in person. They agree to meet in their usual spot in the PATH, but the hacker, who arrives first, is being followed. She makes her way to a Shoppers, where she's stabbed to death by a masked assailant.

( you know the drill )

By no one's request, I have downloaded Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent season 2 so that I can watch it so you don't have to.

This one is bad. Like, I normally like my trash TV but it's possible for a pop culture product to be actively harmful and the season opener, "White Squirrel City," is definitely that. It's also an incredible microcosm of our cultural moment.

Which is to say, a few years ago the cops cleared a tent encampment at Bickford Park. Residents were violently displaced, their possessions confiscated, and either forced to go elsewhere, minus their belongings, or shoved into insufficient temporary shelter. This is a major cause of death for homeless people.* Then, to film the copaganda show, they set up a fake tent encampment in the same place where the city had evicted real ones.

So it's one of those situations where even if it had been Great Art, the price of creation would have been outweighed by the moral violation. That said, it's also bad art.

Here is an article from the excellent Grind magazine about all of the things wrong in this episode. The author says it better than I could, and also points out its most egregious flaws, leaving me to nitpick and mock the minor ones.

( spoilers )

I've finished watching it (I know, I know, I missed the Discourse). Conspirituality recently did an episode about it (two, actually, as it was mentioned at length in the preceding episode. They thought it was well done but ultimately fell into a conservative framework while distorting basic truths and fanning a moral panic, and I've seen that sentiment elsewhere online. However. I disagree to the point where I wonder if they watched the same show I just did.

The spoiler-free version: I thought it was stunning acting. The continuous shot thing can be a gimmick (and I think it can be problematic in a way slightly orthogonal but not unrelated to Conspirituality's critique) but it made for compelling TV. It is very obviously a fictional show that plays some elements up for dramatic effect, but it captures some fundamental truths about the kids today and I think it's worthwhile. I do not think it should be the basis of policy for the UK government or anywhere else; I do think it's important viewing for people who work with kids or have kids in their lives.

( I have to get more spoilery if I want to discuss the critiques. )

I don't even know what to say. I was an Art Kid in the 90s; his influence on who I am and how I think cannot be overstated.

I hear that the wildfires may have played a role in his death and I am even more livid.

Watch on YouTube

Extruded L&O product. I hope you weren't expecting a grand finale!

( episode 10 )

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my Law & Order Toronto recaps. Just a little reminder that by and large Canadian-made TV is still awful despite the size of Toronto's film and TV production industry. There is no reason why it needs to suck as hard as it does—it must be a conscious aesthetic choice.

I don't even know what this is.

( episode 9 )

( This one is about hockey. And Olivia Chow. )

This one has to do with sexual assault so, trigger warning.

( episode 7 )

More Law & Order Toronto.

( episode 5 )

( episode 6 )

It's the Crack Mayor one everyone!

( RoFo and Roll! )

In which I watch the second and third episodes of Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent. I think I will rate these episodes on how good the plot is, whether we learn anything interesting about any character, and most importantly, how Toronto the episode was.

So, my bad: The OG intro is so hardwired into my skull that I didn't realize that this series only deals with the cop side of the investigation, not the prosecutors, which is too bad because the prosecutor in this is funnier than the cops. (In general there are a lot of beats that feel like there should be a punchline, and there either isn't, or the punchline is terrible, so it's not a very high bar to be funnier than the cops.)

Anyway, did you know that Toronto was having a war on crime? It is, according to the opening voiceover!

Fun fact: In 2023, there were 73 murders in Toronto. In the first three episodes, seven people are murdered, accounting for just under 10% of all murders that happened in the city that year.

( spoilers for a show no one is watching or will watch )

I have started watching Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent. Should I blog my thoughts? Is this something you're interested in hearing about?

( episode 1 thoughts under the cut )

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The Antisocial Socialist

i'll tell you all my secrets but i'll lie about my past

Entries tagged with tv

L&O season 2: Episode 10

L&O season 2: Episode 9

L&O season 2: Episode 8

L&O season 2: Episode 7

L&O season 2: Episode 6

L&O season 2: Episode 5

L&O season 2: Episode 4

L&O season 2: Episode 3

L&O season 2: Episode 2

L&O season 2: Episode 1

A defence of Adolescence

RIP David Lynch

L&O: episode 10

L&O: episode 9

L&O: episode 8

L&O: episode 7

L&O: episode 5 & 6

L&O: episode 4

L&O: episodes 2 and 3

dun-DUN

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