Law & Order: Criminal Intent season 1
The first season of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, an American police procedural television series, was developed by Dick Wolf and René Balcer. It began airing on September 30, 2001, on NBC, a national broadcast television network in the United States. It is the second spin-off of the long-running crime drama Law & Order.
"The Third Horseman" redirects here. Not to be confused with The Fourth Horseman, The Fifth Horseman, Four Horsemen, or member of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Law & Order: Criminal Intent follows the New York City Police Department's fictional Major Case Squad, which investigates high-profile murder cases. The first season of twenty-two episodes concluded its initial airing on May 10, 2002. Four actors received star billing in the first season: Vincent D'Onofrio, Kathryn Erbe, Jamey Sheridan, and Courtney B. Vance.
Episodes depict Detectives Robert Goren (D'Onofrio) and Alexandra Eames (Erbe) as the squad's lead investigators. Captain James Deakins (Sheridan) is the detectives' direct supervisor and head of the Major Case Squad. Assistant District Attorney Ron Carver (Vance) often attempts to obtain confessions from the suspects, rather than taking them to trial. Law & Order: Criminal Intent focuses on the actions and motives of the criminals, and it divides screen time equally between the suspects and victims and the police's investigation.
The season was filmed on location in New York City. Scenes set inside the Major Case Squad department were filmed in a studio at Chelsea Piers, Manhattan.
The season was nominated for four awards and was described by some reviewers as the most impressive of all the Law & Order series. It was sold to numerous television stations around the world, and it has been adapted into localized foreign versions in Russia and France. It has been syndicated in the US on a number of cable channels. A DVD box set of Season 1 was released in America on October 21, 2003, and episodes are available for purchase at the US iTunes Store and Amazon Video on Demand.
Law & Order: Criminal Intent is not an ensemble series,[14] and therefore differs from Law & Order and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit which respectively featured six and eight actors receiving star billing during the same broadcast season.[15][16] Movie actor Vincent D'Onofrio was offered the lead role of Detective Robert Goren, a hyper-intuitive contemporary Sherlock Holmes-type investigator who used to work for the US Military Police.[17] Other than a 1998 guest role on Homicide: Life on the Street that earned him an Emmy nomination, this was D'Onofrio's first major television role.[18][19] Goren's partner, former vice squad detective Alexandra Eames,[17] was played by Kathryn Erbe who had just completed a role on Oz as convicted murderer Shirley Bellinger.[20] Balcer stated Eames was cast because "she just looked like a real cop."[21] Courtney B. Vance plays Assistant District Attorney Ron Carver, a graduate of John Jay College of Criminal Justice.[17][22] Jamey Sheridan was the last actor to be cast in a main role, taking the part of James Deakins, a "seasoned" NYPD Captain.[7][17] In a recurring role, Leslie Hendrix appeared as Assistant Chief Medical Examiner Elizabeth Rodgers, the same character she had played in the other two series.[23] Steve Zirnkilton provides a voice-over at the beginning of each episode's opening credits, saying "In New York City's war on crime, the worst criminal offenders are pursued by the detectives of the Major Case Squad. These are their stories."[24][25]
There were several guest stars in the episodes of this series, such as:
Distribution[edit]
The first season of Law & Order: Criminal Intent premiered during the 2001–2002 television season on the American terrestrial television network NBC. The pilot episode, titled "One", aired on Sunday September 30, 2001 at 9:00 p.m. EST. Episodes aired weekly until December, when the show took a brief hiatus until January, and took another hiatus during February. The final episode of the season aired at 9:00 p.m. on Friday May 10, 2002.[13] Under a $100,000-per-episode shared or second window syndication agreement that cable channel USA Network made with NBC,[3][11] USA Network was allowed to broadcast episodes out of primetime a week after their premiere on NBC.[26] The season is also under a regular off-network syndication deal at USA Networks and Bravo. The two channels teamed up late 2004 to pay $2 million per episode for the syndication rights to the series, allowing USA Network to air episodes during the week, and Bravo to air episodes at the weekend.[27][28] In 2007, Fox Television Stations, a group of Fox Broadcasting Company owned-and-operated stations, entered a syndication deal to broadcast episodes as part of its daytime schedule.[29] From late 2009, MyNetworkTV will broadcast Law & Order: Criminal Intent, including episodes from season one, having changed their business model from a network broadcaster to a syndication programming service.[30][31][32] The series has also been distributed to international broadcasters. It aired in Canada on CTV,[33] in France on TF1,[34] in the United Kingdom on Hallmark Channel and Five,[35][36] in Australia on Network Ten,[37] and in New Zealand on TV3.[38]
Episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent's first season have been adapted into localized foreign versions.[39] Russian: Закон и порядок: Преступный умысел (lit. Law & Order: Criminal Mind), premiered in 2007 on NTV (Russia) and is produced by Global American Television, Studio2B and NTV, Wolf Films and NBC Universal.[40][41] On May 3, 2007, the French Law & Order: Criminal Intent broadcaster, TF1, began airing Paris enquêtes criminelles, a co-production from TF1 and ALMA, Wolf Films and NBC Universal.[42] All eight episodes of Paris enquêtes criminelles's first season, two episodes from the second season, and one third-season episode were adapted from Law & Order: Criminal Intent first-season episodes.[43] Wolf stated that Law & Order: Criminal Intent has been sold to foreign networks because it is easier to adapt into local legal systems than Law & Order, where half of each episode occurs in the courtroom.[44]
The season is available in a number of new media formats. Universal Studios Home Entertainment released it in a 6-disc DVD box set on October 21, 2003, in Region 1, titled Law & Order: Criminal Intent – The First Year.[45] The pilot episode was also released on a separate DVD on June 3, 2003.[46] Consumers in the US can purchase and download episodes from the iTunes Store and Amazon Video on Demand.[47][48]
Reception[edit]
Laura Fries of Variety commented on the difference between this series and Law & Order and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: "By scrutinizing motive and intent, Criminal Intent utilizes a more personal style that sets it apart from its brethren. Wolf's characters are notoriously devoid of detailed personal lives, but debut [episode] hints at a little more introspection on the part of the characters".[12] In Entertainment Weekly, Ken Tucker wrote that Law & Order: Criminal Intent was the best series of the year from the Law & Order franchise and that while Law & Order suffered from tired, wooden performances from actors with poor chemistry, the acting on Law & Order: Criminal Intent was at "the other end of the spectrum." Both writers commented on the overpowering screen presence that D'Onofrio commands in the first episode: "Criminal Intent so far is a one-man show with Vincent D'Onofrio at its center. [He] commands the most attention, tending to overshadow Erbe, who is reduced in the pilot to following Goren with an awe-struck look," wrote Fries,[12] while Tucker also stated, "D'Onofrio is so eccentrically entertaining, even his costar Kathryn Erbe seems fascinated",[5] but complained that Erbe's role was smaller than D'Onofrio's, which "jibes with the subtle range she showed on [HBO's] Oz and proves her professional generosity." He also said Sheridan "is similarly nonplussed and under-utilized," but "Vance is terrific [as Carver], who makes defendants wither in the face of his elegantly reasoned cross-examinations."[5]
Law & Order: Criminal Intent's first season received four nominations from three award ceremonies. "The Faithful" and "Smothered" were given commendations at the Prism Awards in the category for Best TV Drama Series Episode.[49] Vance was nominated in the Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series category at the 2002 NAACP Image Awards.[50] René Balcer received an Edgar Award nomination for "Tuxedo Hill".[51] Casting director Lynn Kressel was nominated at the Casting Society of America Artios Awards in the category for Best Casting for TV in a Dramatic Pilot.[52]