Some thoughts on "It Takes A Village," the November 4 episode of NYPD Blue, followed by a two-line summary so people know what show I'm talking about: ------------------------------------------------ Bobby is disgusted by a drug-ddicted mother's willingness to implicate her sons in a murder, while Andy is exposed to a dark side of himself while investigating the rape of a nine year-old girl. ------------------------------------------------- 1)Well, I'll be damned. After an interesting but confusing season premiere and two weak episodes sandwiched around a mediocre one (the Abby episode), we finally get a show that reminds us of why we all started watching the show in the first place. Scenes with multiple layers, lots of tension, and a whole lot of human ugliness. In particular, I thought this was one of the best locker room scenes in a long, long time -- not quite on a par with Andy's "Why I'm a bigot" speech from "Where's 'Swaldo?", but still great. In fact, I'd say virtually the entire show was brilliant except for... 2)...the ongoing saga of Bobby & Diane, Sexual Addicts. I realize we don't see all their off-duty activities -- and I probably wouldn't want to -- but the show frequently gives the impression that the only thing they have in common is that they're great in bed together, and that Bobby has a superhuman ability to get it up under the most stressful, depressing conditions (hmmm.... maybe Smits should be in a sequel to Boogie Nights). I wold've ended the show with either the locker room scene, or, more probably, Diane's hug, which at least suggested there's hope for the world. I don't actually have a problem with Diane being excited by the idea of a baby -- unlike Andy, Bobby, or Jill, she actually was exposed to an example of how wonderful parenthood can be (the bit where the superintendent brought his son by to make sure she was't mad at him). I do, however, have a problem with A)Her psychic ability to tell that one of his sperm penetrated one of her eggs, and B)The fact that we're soon going to have every regular and semi-regular woman on the show, other than Kirkendall, either pregnant or caring for a small child. Childbirth is a wonderful thing in real life, but when a TV show makes three (Diane, Gina and Abby) of its five major female characters preggers at the same time, you have to start wondering whether some kind of statement is being made. Andy gets to smack around kiddie rapers; Diane gets morning sickness. How egalitarian. 3)The rape storyline was fairly interesting, and added to the show's theme of parents and children, but what really made it work was the twist during interrogation, when the rapist suggested that Andy's willingness to beat him comes from the same kind of irresistable impulse that makes him assault little girls. In years past, there've been jokey lines from Andy at the end of a violence-free interrogation like, "I'm going to have such a headache tonight for not beating you." They don't seem so funny anymore, do they? 4)Am I the only one who thinks Bobby is just as upset by his own behavior as by the mother's? Remember, if he was so concerned for these kids' welfare, he had the ability to help them by not lying his ass off to their grandmother. When she asked if she could trust him, it looked like Bobby's heart split in two. Speaking of "Where's 'Swaldo?," I wonder if this episode will wind up being Smits' Emmy showcase ep this year. (Hopefully, there'll be a lot more to choose from.) 5)Okay, I'm Catherine Stribling, and I'm trying to put the finishing touches on my NYPD Blue script. I've got a pair of interesting cases and a kickass locker room scene, but the episode keeps running short. How am I going to pad it out? Okay, I've got Andy musing about eye surgery to add one of those "realistic" touches that on-line guy is always bitching about there not being enough of... damn! Still a couple of minutes short! What to do, what to do.... I know! I'll stick in a pointless two-minute scene with Greg and James recapping their recent subplots in as obvious a manner as possible! And it won't seem jarring at all plopped randomly into the middle of the episode! Yeah, that's the ticket! 6)On Election Days past, ABC would pre-empt the show and give the hour over to the network news division, but since there were virtually no national-level races this year (aside from the election to fill Susan Molinari's Congressional seat), instead we got a half-assed solution here in New York (and I'm assuming most places around the country): Blue was shown on-time and all the way through, but once per act, the local news theme blared over some dialogue, the screen shrank, and we were subjected to two minutes of the Blue scene being surrounded by election results. Considering how intense most of this show was, this was really distracting. I wish ABC had either A)Pre-empted the show again, maybe turning the hour over to all the local affiliates for one night, or B)Placed strict orders against disrupting the programming (they could've broken through during commercial breaks). Alan Sepinwall * e-mail: sepinwal@force.stwing.upenn.edu NYPD Blue page: http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~sepinwal/nypd.html RANDOM QUOTE: "You seem like a thinker. You seem to always be deep in thought. So what are you thinking right now?" "I'm thinking I could take more of these potaters." -John Ritter & Billy Bob Thornton, "Sling Blade"