Doesn't quite compare

I watched L&O: SVU last night. This show is generally hit or miss for me. Benson (Mariska Hargaty) just gets on my nerves and it irritates me to no end that she's an emmy darling, while Kathryn Erbe is constantly looked over, despite portraying a more realistic female role model.


I do like Christopher Meloni. I have a soft spot for actors who can go from one end of the spectrum to the other and do it well. He's actually a really good comedic actor and a part of me wishes that he would leave SVU and go do some quirky, off the wall comedy series. He is great in this one episode of Scrubs, where he plays a very much respected pediatrician, who is a little too attached to the puppet he uses to entertain his patients. So Dr. Cox "kidnaps" the puppet in order to bribe the pediatrician into fitting his son into his booked schedule. It's hilarious.


Meloni also has a cameo in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and is only recognizable by his voice. He plays this deformed, back woods mechanic and is completely ridiculous.


But I like that. I like actors who can go from stark seriousness to ridiculousness -- like Gary Cole, who is easily in my top three most underrated actors list, but that's a different post.


But, anywho, on this SVU episode, Stabler's (Meloni) daughter is in trouble again and it unearths this plethora of bad and dangerous behavior (drugs, alcholoh, promiscuity, etc.). They come to find out that she has bi-polar disorder and then we meet Stabler's mommy, played by Ellen Burstyin.


We learn that his mother, though never formally diagnosed or treated, also is bi-polar and how her erratic behavior effected his childhood. In the big dramatic scene between mom and son, he mentions a time when she pulled his father's gun on them and nearly shot them and then later we learn that she caused an accident that broke his arm.


I like Ellen Burstyin and I like Chris Meloni, but the whole time I was watching the scene between the two of them I couldn't help but wonder: were the SVU writers watching re-runs of CI, or what?


And to make matters worse, that scene just doesn't hold a candle to the chemistry and just heart wrenchingness of Rita Moreno and Vincent D'Onofrio. Rita Moreno and Tony Goldwyn were robbed by the Emmys -- both were absolutley stellar and did so much in such a limited amount of screen time -- that's acting.


Though, I'm sure, since SVU is SVU that they will get the acclaim that the CI cast did not.


Here's a YouTube video I found highlighting some of the scenes between D'Onofrio and Moreno. It's by Oliviafan29 and is set to a song called "Wreck of the Day." Not sure who it's by -- sounds slightly like Jewel...but not sure if it's her.