Law and Order: SVU Reviews Y

This is a set of reviews of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes. My general thoughts about that show are here. I’ll often do no more than make brief notes about an episode, although occasionally I’ll go deeper. Also, often there are dissenting main characters on almost any political issue, but you can usually tell what the general position of the show is. All the rest of the reviews are available by clicking on the l&osvu label at the bottom.

(Now that I’m watching the episodes that involve the character John Munch, I’m going to ignore most of his political statements)

“Closet” Season 9. Wikipedia summary is: “When an investment banker is found murdered by an intern (Ian Alda), suspicion turns to his boyfriend (Bailey Chase), a professional football player who could lose everything if the truth about his sexuality comes to light. When information about his sexual orientation is leaked to the media, despite the best efforts of his publicity manager (Rick Hoffman), Benson comes under fire by Internal Affairs for her relationship with a reporter (Bill Pullman).”

This is partly about homophobia.

“Cold” Season 9. Wikipedia summary is: “The SVU is shaken when multiple members of the squad are determined to stop a conspiracy of dirty cops. Haunted by a ten-year-old rape-murder case, Detective Lake meets with a contact (Deirdre Lovejoy) to find out about new evidence. On his way back, he gets into a firefight with two police officers and kills one of them. In an injured state, Lake tracks down the surviving rape victim (Victoria Cartagena) and convinces her to testify. While this is happening, the SVU squad discovers that the second shooter (Jack Gwaltney) works for the Fugitive Apprehension Team. Benson and Stabler arrive just in time to stop him from killing Lake and Novak proceeds to put the shooter on trial. However, the case quickly goes downhill in the courtroom and Novak withholds evidence in a last-ditch effort to win a conviction. She is informed by Elizabeth Donnelly (Judith Light) that she faces censure and possible suspension, and that the District Attorney declined the opportunity to refile the charges. This leaves Chester with no choice but to gun down the corrupt cop himself, therefore resulting in his arrest.”

It’s about a rape/homicide of a teenage girl by two cops.

“Lunacy” Season 10. Wikipedia summary is: “A famous astronaut (Kristina Klebe) is found dead and Stabler's old mentor Dick Finley (James Brolin), after whom Stabler's son is named, helps investigate the case. They first believe the victim is linked to a string of serial rapes, but other suspects closer to the space program present themselves. An obsessed fan (Chris Elliott) is questioned, but is released and soon gets into a gun battle with Dick. Stabler becomes suspicious of Dick after he keeps diverting attention away from himself and finding out about Dick's own aspirations of going into space.”

Two notes:
1) The victim was a gay woman.
2) Close to the beginning the detectives stumble onto three people making an amateur porn film about a muslim woman being raped, and the film-makers are criticized, as they should be.

“Retro” Season 10. Wikipedia summary is: “When a baby is found with advanced AIDS, Benson and Stabler are called in to investigate why someone would let a baby go untreated for HIV. They are led to a highly unethical doctor (Martin Mull), an AIDS denialist, who believes and teaches that HIV does not cause AIDS and offers alternative treatments to cure HIV. They search for more families that have been influenced by him and are led to a particular family whose younger daughter died of AIDS, which calls the mother (Paula Malcomson) and son (Aidan Mitchell) into question.”

The AIDS denialist believes that Black people who disagree with him are biased because they’re (allegedly) related to a lot of people who died of AIDS in America or Africa. The ADA questioning him in court criticizes him for that.

“Babes” Season 10. Wikipedia summary is: “The investigation into the burning death of a homeless teenager leads Stabler and Munch to a Catholic high school where a senior (Philip Ettinger) admits to the crime. He confesses because he thought his sister was raped by the man, when in truth, his sister (Brittany Robertson) and her friends made a pregnancy pact and willingly had sex to become pregnant. One of those friends (Jessica Varley) is later found dead in an apparent suicide after being harassed online by an angry mother (Debi Mazar). Greylek files a case against her which comes dangerously close to violating the first amendment, but it is eventually discovered that the girl was murdered by her boyfriend (Jesse McCartney) out of jealousy.”

A small part of this is about violence towards homeless people. Such violence is sickening. Homeless people are vulnerable and many are sort of defenseless. Even though a minority of homeless people are sex offenders, I think the main reason they (homeless people) get physically attacked is that the perpetrators think they’ll get away with it because a lot of people just don’t care about homeless people. A lot of young people who engage in that violence have been influenced by people who blame the victims of capitalism- people who believe that the homeless are lazy and responsible for being in that horrible situation. But these same people don’t want full employment because if everyone had a job where would they find strike-breakers? These people are also insensitive to the role that mental illness plays in people becoming homeless (and after that happens, the stress and anxiety and depression of being homeless just makes those disabilities worse).

Roseanne Reviews Q

This is a set of reviews of Roseanne episodes. My general thoughts about that show are here. I will focus only on the political aspects and will mention what percent of lines spoken by non-family members are spoken by people of color.

“Pretty in Black” Episode 5 Season 5. Wikipedia summary is: “The Conners enjoy torturing Darlene by pretending to give her a dreaded Sweet-Sixteen birthday party. While playing "Truth or Dare" with Jackie, Anne Maire, and Crystal, Roseanne suffers an embarrassing incident when she unexpectedly meets the Conners new neighbor. “

There were about 40-45 lines by non-family members and about 10% were by a person of color.

“Looking for Loans in All the Wrong Places” Episode 6, Season 5. Wikipedia summary is: “Roseanne and Jackie decide to open a diner with Nancy, using the money that Bev gave them. When the three are unable to get a bank loan for the additional needed capital, Bev agrees to put up another $10,000, but only as a 4th partner. Molly complains to Darlene about D.J.'s voyeurism, and Darlene confronts Molly about her flirtatious behavior with David.”

This episode expresses support for affirmative action (especially for women) when it comes to small business loans. But the Small Business Administration won’t help Roseanne, Jackie, and Nancy and Roseanne says: “the SBA supposed to be set up to help people like us, but y’all don’t know nothing about people like us. The trouble with people who work for the government is you all have jobs.”

There were about 50 lines by non-family members and none were by people of color.

“Halloween IV” episode 7, Season 5. Wikipedia summary is: “Becky's absence has drained Roseanne's Halloween spirit, so she is visited by the ghosts of Halloween Past, Present, and a truly terrifying Future.”

There were about 30-40 lines by non-family members and about 10% were by people of color.

“Ladies’ Choice” Episode 8, Season 5. Wikipedia summary is: “Roseanne and Jackie are shocked to discover that Nancy is a lesbian. Roseanne thinks she is getting old when Bev moves into a retirement community.”

A huge part of this episode is recurring character Nancy coming out as gay or bi. Roseanne and Jackie respond in a way that’s mostly positive but realistically a little homophobic.

Jackie at one point says she’s going to Walmart. This is decades before Walmart started paying its workers better (about 5 years ago). Jackie might be poor enough that  I would have no problem with her shopping there- even though I boycotted Walmart until recently (I’ve probably spent a total of about $100 there and that’s probably about 3-5% of what I’ve spent on groceries in the last year) I’ve always understood that there’s nothing wrong with poor people shopping there.

Out of about 20-25 lines by non-family members, none are by people of color.

“Stand on Your Man” Episode 9, Season 5. Wikipedia summary is: “Roseanne, working a late shift at the diner alone, is threatened by an aggressive customer, prompting the girls to take a self-defense class. When Arnie wants to return to Nancy, he learns she is a lesbian.”

Out of about 45-55 lines by non-family members, about 5% are by a person of color.

Babylon 5 Reviews G

Years ago I did what you might call “reviews” of Star Trek episodes. I mostly just briefly noted what progressive politics were involved and sometimes used that as an excuse to talk about similar situations in reality.

Last year I finally watched all five seasons of Babylon 5, another sci-fi show, one I had thought of watching once in a while stretching back a couple decades. It isn’t as political or as progressive as ST but there’s some good stuff there- in fact, on one issue, a progressive take on the working-class and/or labor movement, B5 is better than ST. Because there is so little progressive material, I’m going to do one post for every four episodes reviewed, and only mention the episodes that have some progressive political stuff. I might ignore some of the more minor and/or less unique stuff about conflict resolution because from what I remember, it’s very common in this series. Also, although less so than is the case with Star Trek, multiculturalism is a big part of Babylon Five and I will also only be commenting on that when it goes further than usual. There are issues raised about telepaths- I’m going to completely ignore stuff about telepaths when reviewing these episodes. I also will probably say nothing about the conflict with the evil race the Shadows- sure, I could say Trump is as evil as they are or compare them to Nazi Germany, but that’s kind of silly (I’m sure there is nothing political about the Shadows, they’re just evil, like the Borg or the Empire). And I might skip most of the stuff about the conflict between B5 and the Earth government- I don’t remember it involving stuff like a strong capitalist agenda or racism or something.

**Season 3 Episode 3 “A Day in the Strife”** See this for a plot summary.

This episode contains a fair amount of stuff about the Centauri occupation of Narn. We learn that there is a resistance and that for every Centauri killed 500 Narn are killed. The former dissolved the old Narn government and created a provisional government. The representative of it sent to B5 opposes the resistance, saying it is the wrong time. I am inclined to think, when would be the right time? This Narn collaborator vaguely talks about waiting until they’re a bit stronger and the Centauri have been lulled into a sense of false security. Between the fact that he is officially a collaborator and at one point he blames the resistance, not the Centauri, for the nightmare the Narn are experiencing, I’m inclined to dismiss his opposition to the resistance.

Looking at N. Ireland, I believe that certainly there were some times when it was a bad idea to use violence. First I have supported the cease-fire since day one. And I would agree that in the late '60s it would have been inappropriate for the IRA to have been conducting operations in N. Ireland. But after Aug. 1969 (when there were massive anti-catholic pogroms) and especially about 9 months later when, independent of the IRA, the relationship between the British Army and the nationalist community went bad, it was legitimate for the IRA to attack the security forces. After that, they usually had the backing of about 40% of the population and in my opinion the right analysis of the situation- it was very important to unite Ireland, considering what had been done to the nationalist population around 1970. As I explain here only about .3% of the IRA’s operations were aimed at killing civilians.

There is a scene in the episode which I think is worth quoting in full. The Narn representative of the new government meets wit the Centauri ambassador (Mollari) and his aide, Vir.

Mollari: You know, I was thinking of visiting your world sometime soon. I couldn’t really get a good look at it the last time I was in the area. Do you think it would be safe for someone such as myself to visit your world now?

Na’far: Yes, quite safe.

Mollari: The streets are kept clear of troublemakers, rock throwers, protestors?

Nar’far: The surviving streets are quite empty, ambassador.

Molarri: The work farms, the relocation camps, the construction gangs are all operating at capacity?

Na’far: (nodds)

Mollari: And the executions, Na’far? The executions continue?

Na’far: The executions continue.

Mollari: Progress! It’s a beautiful thing to behold, no, Vir? [to Na’far] you may contact G’Kar, now. go, go (Na’far leaves)

Vir: Was that necessary?

Mollari: They got out of their place once. We must make sure it does not happen again.

Vir: Londo, we’ve beaten them. Their cities are in ashes, their mlitary is wiped out. They’ve lost hundreds and thousands of lives. They have nothing left!

Mollari: No, there you are wrong. They still have their pride. He tries to hide it, this one, but I can see it in his eyes. As long as it remains, they will always be a threat.

Vir: So, is that what it’s about? Pride? It’s not enough that we’ve beaten them, we have to break them?

Mollari: Yes. I’m sorry, I thought you understood that. I don’t want our people to go through this in another 100 years.


I think this illustrates the racial nature of imperialism very well.


**Season 3 Episode 5 “Voices of Authority”** See this for a plot summary.

The main political dimension to this episode is the appointment of a Political Officer to keep an eye on Sheridan. She talks a lot about his need to be more sensitive to what the Earth Government wants. She says a few other things that are worth noting:

1. She doubts that the Centauri are bent on war because Earth has a treaty with them- but in the previous year or so, the Centauri were invading planet after planet and showed no signs of stopping.

2. She says the homeless people on Earth don’t want jobs and have chosen to be homeless. She says “they’re either lazy, or they’re criminal or they’re mentally unstable.” She says that the Earth Government has promised everyone a job. But that must be something they didn’t follow up on (Captain Sheridan says the homeless can’t get jobs). At one point she admits that they re-wrote the dictionary in order to “solve” problems.

3. She talks about the expansion of McCarthy-esque policies and admits that civil rights and civil liberties will be abridged further than they already have been, and explicitly talks about keeping Earth “ideologically pure.”

**Season 3 Episode 6 “Dust to Dust”** For a plot summary see this.

There is one small bit of politics at the beginning. It's another example of the Night Watch’s McCarthyism. Captain Sheridan stands against it forcefully.

**Season 3 Episode 10 “Severed Dreams”** See this for a plot summary.

In recent episodes there was nothing that really stood out as especially political. The anti-democratic tendencies of the Earth Government  have been mentioned in episodes a little earlier so I didn’t say anything till now about the political crisis on Earth when it was exposed that the President had come into power as the result of a coup. Martial law was declared, the Senate was dissolved, and in this episode, there is a full-blown civil war.

In this episode, Mars rebels against the government, and two other colonies plus Babylon 5 declare independence.