Criminal Intent & The Adventure of English

This article first appeared in the Age on February 19, 2005

I usually try (with limited success) not to bang on abut my own interests. These include Buffy, all things Indian, West Wing, weather and science fiction. I am also intrigued by the way gay people are represented on TV but know that subject isn't for everyone. But since about six of the shows I have watched to preview in the last 10 weeks or so have had a psycho lesbian I certainly feel safe in saying that if producers think that it's an interesting plot twist because no one will guess that two women might fall in love, they are probably misjudging their audience. Like Glenn Close rising from the bathtub just one more time in Fatal Attraction, the move is getting predictable. Lesbianism in these kind of plots is a metaphor for love that is violent and claustrophobic, love which, having broken one taboo, quite happily breaks the taboo against murder.

It's a twist that is handled very amusingly in some shows (I wont say which for fear of ruining their plots) though not so amusingly in this episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent (Sunday, Channel 10, 8.30 pm), which subscribes to the idea that homosexuality is just one more symptom of psychosis and amorality. My bugbear however is not this episode's main claim to fame. That is that viewers will be asked to SMS their preferred ending towards the end of the show. Voting lines are to be open from 9.25 pm to 10.15 pm, with the most popular choice in each state being aired after NCIS at around 10.20 pm.

In 'Great Barrier', Goren tracks down a mysterious young diamond "swallower" who is being manipulated by his nemesis, Nicole Wallace (that's the lesbian psycho bit). As Goren closes in on Wallace, and I quote, 'he discovers a horrifying secret that may allow him to finally close the book on his lethal adversary. '

Goren is, as usual, intimidating, full of pseudo-psycho babble, and invasive. His way of operating leaves me repelled rather than intrigued which means I have never been one of the show's many fans. But there is some genuine suspense to be had in which ending viewers will choose. All I know is that since none of the endings involve Detective Goren meeting his maker, I am bound to be disappointed.

English is as ubiquitous, though more fascinating, than Law and Order, and the penultimate episode of The Adventure of English (Sunday, 7.30 pm, SBS) traces the language's travel to and adoption by other lands. As Bragg puts it, 'the sun never sets on the English language'. It survived because of its capacity to absorb words from its invaders centuries ago. As it has travelled in more recent times, English has continued to absorb qualities of the cultures it moves to. This episode examines the particular styles of Indian English, Jamaican English and Australian. There is a beautiful rhythm to the dialects as they evolve and the series provides, quite literally a kind of song line that allows us to trace centuries of invasion, consolidation, colonialism and post-colonialism. In Australia, English was colored by Aboriginal words, such as kangaroo, boomerang, barramundi, and billabong; but it was also shaped class. Many words we think of as typically Australian, such as cobber, dinkum, digger, were in fact imported from the London slums of the nineteenth century. The Adventure of English is a story of religion and class, tyranny and oceans. There are far more thrills to be had in this tale than anything Law & Order may care to produce, no matter how many SMS's are involved.

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