Old Friends in New Places

Yesterday’s viewing was full of familiar faces popping up in new places and I’m not just talking about Tom Bosley/Mr Cunningham from Happy Days in Murder She Wrote!

I finally got the OH to see the resemblance between the character Lechero in Prison Break with The Wire’s Bunny Colvin. And it turns out, its little surprise there was a resemblance as both are played by Robert Wisdom.

Next up as Law & Order: Criminal Intent. One of the suspects is played by Brad Renfro who we last saw in Larry Clark’s film Bully. But the more familiar faces were those of the new pair of detectives. Detective Carolyn Barek is none other than Annabella Sciorra who I recognised immediately as Gloria Trillo, Tony’s obsessive girlfriend in The Sopranos. The OH was sceptical at first, before concurring. He then expressed the sentiment that her voice was too seductive to be a cop, only to contradict himself minutes later by saying she made a good cop. Not sure what she did in the between times to change his mind.

But the big return was that of Chris Noth, back playing Detective Mike Logan who he played for several years in the original Law & Order. Of course, most women the world over know him as Mr Big from Sex & the City but I must be the only woman alive who didn’t like that show much and barely noticed him in it. To me he will always be Mike Logan, although he still has some way to go before he equals Richard Belzer’s record for the number of series he’s played John Munch.

So at first I was pleased to see him back fighting crime on the streets of New York but as the show progressed I became disappointed. First of all, what has happened to his voice? The pitch of it was so low, I could barely make out what he was saying most of the time. The other thing is that he seems to have had a makeover. We regularly used to mock his tartan ties when he was in L&O – he had quite a collection, all of them horrid. But they have gone, replaced with an almost stylish dark grey number last night. Its just not the same.

I’m also not convinced by his new found role as one of the elite detectives. I don’t see how he can match Goran’s vast knowledge and I don’t recall intuition being his strong point. Also I thought he left under a cloud having punch a city official or something similar so not sure how he’s ended up in this position.