Friday, 02/02/07

I listened to an episode of Law and Order tonight while cleaning the kitchen, because I like Dennis Farina. Turns out Dennis Farina left the show at the end of last year, so I won't have to make that mistake again.

The episode hinged on a stem cell researcher who tried to shoot an Ann Coulter stand-in at a university lecture, but hit someone else.

At trial it's revealed that the researcher has Parkinson's, as he ostensibly stops taking his medication and starts visibly shaking in a bid for jury sympathy. Then, while on the stand, he claims that he hadn't meant to shoot anyone but his hand shook and the gun went off. Aha, says prosecutor-for-life McCoy, who each year more resembles an embittered tree, but you were taking your medication that day so you could do your delicate embryo-smashing test tube work! So why was your hand shaking! Then the defendant got to have his big emotional outburst and seal his own conviction.

What I take from this is that the writers paid attention to the Michael J. Fox/Rush Limbaugh imbroglio last fall only to the point that Limbaugh accused Fox of faking his symptoms ("He's an actor!"), or of going off his medication to exacerbate them. They missed the part where Fox explained that the shaking is a side-effect of the medication, without which he'd be completely paralyzed, and die of suffocation.

I kept waiting for McCoy or his interchangeable 26-year-old assistant to make the point that the defendant knew less about Parkinson's than your average Jim Lehrer viewer, and was presumably faking his whole illness, but the moment never came. It was a supremely stupid hour of television, and if I hadn't at least come away from the experience with clean counters, I'd be addressing this missive to Jack Donaghy and demanding 42 minutes of my life back (having of course skipped the commercials). 11:44PM «

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