This Episode Clearly Indicates Things Are Going Down The Tubes This Season!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                                       Girls, I am telling you, I think this may be the final year for "Law And Order, SVU."  As noted here last week, the Season Opener was hardly a world beater, and this follow-up, "Twenty-Five Acts," was dull, flat, not especially well written, populated with scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel guest stars, and where even the more well known minor players seemed to be phoning in their performances.

                                  The episode, entitled "Twenty- Five Acts" concerned a sex assault suit based on a book  the same title of the episode, which is clearly a riff from "Fifty Shades Of Grey."  Now, I have not read that trash (which I call "Fifty Shades Of Crap") nor will I ever.  The episode, which had the potential to be interesting , was done in from the very beginning.

                                    When you get two losers like Anna Chlumsky and Roger Bart, for guess spots, this is a sure sign of the show being in trouble.  Couldn't they get anyone better??????   Chlumsky plays the alleged (pay close attention to that word, darlings!!!!!!!) author of the sex tome, Jocelyn Paley, and when I saw her, I was, like, "The girl who appeared years before with Macaulay Culkin in "My Girl?  What rehab center did they dig her out of?"  Same with Roger Bart; better actors could have played this part, but I bet no one wanted it, after seeing the script (which the smarter ones passed over!!!!), but then, Bart is desperate to jump start whatever career he has left, because it has been over ten years since "The Producers" was on Broadway, and really, darlings, beyond that, what the hell has he done?   Someone gave Roger a bone last night with this role, but the character he plays turns out to be so reprehensible he deserved to get boned!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                    The situation seems to be ( emphasis on seems!!!!!) that Jocelyn Paley wrote this wildly successful novel filled with bondage and domination scenes--just like "Fifty Shades Of Grey." Bart plays a sleazy talk show host, named Adam Cain, and the two flirt shamelessly with each other on national TV. For Jocelyn, it is about playing a role her public expects her  to maintain her career; for Adam Cain, it is about the thrill of the chase, and, when he gets Jocelyn to his apartment later that night, the two enter into an S and M game that seems to be consensual, but gets out of hands, and the question has to be asked--was Jocelyn raped, or not???????????  However, once Cain stalks her the following night at a literary party, corners her in the elevator and does the nasty, there is no question!!!!!!!

                                       Easy and predictable enough, but things get complicated, when Danny Pino, as Amaro ( I loved him on "Cold Case," darlings, but I don't see a future for him here; he keeps ratching up the testosterone in his performance, trying SO HARD to be the show's hottie, but his effort is so visible, that could turn out, by default, to be Dann Florek by the end of this season.  I don't like to lay the blame for the show's failure on one thing, but there is no escaping the fact that since the departure of Chris Meloni as Elliot Stabler, the show has tanked!!!!!!!) ventures to Jocelyn's former undergraduate college in Silver Springs, Maryland, and meets Professor Kathleen Dobson, played by Romy Rosemont, who is here trying so hard to do a badly executed impersonation of Dame Judy Dench!!!!!!!
Who does she think she is????????? Well, guess what?????????  The whole thing is a scam!!!!!!!!!!!

                                        It seems Professor Dobson is the author of "Twenty- Five Acts," wherein she projects all her repressed fantasies.  Being in academia, where it is "publish or perish," she cannot afford to be associated with such trash.  So she asks Jocelyn, who was in her Italian Literature class, and whom she considers innocent enough to pull it off, (though how inncoent, darlings, I ask, is a girl who drops and passes over her panties to a man in a public restaurant???) if she would consent to putting her name on the book, and posing as its author.  In return for  the publicity and connections (which Jocelyn, who wants to be a writer in her own right, could benefit from!!!!) the professor agrees to give Jocelyn ten per cent of the proceeds, which would more than help pay off her college debts, and get her started on a career of her own.

                                        So Jocelyn goes along with it. But too many people buy into her sexy persona, and what happens have been the consequences. This episode abounds with so many sleaze ball characters--Jocelyn, Professor Dobson, Adam Cain, not to mention Raul Esparza (who is doing a little career resuscitating here!!!!!!!) as DA Rafael Barba, who plays the whole thing like a threatened queen in danger of being castrated or, worse, losing his designer wardrobe!!!!!!!!!!  Better watch it there, Raul!!!!!!!!!  Again, another overreaching performance!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                           Contrast that with Tonye Patano, as Judge Maskin. Though recognizable enough from countless appearances on this show, having previously always accorded her role dignity, here she seems tired and disinterested, phoning in her performance, and coming off like a Mammy still stuck in the 1950s!!!!!!!!!  For this performance, I think she deserves the Rosette Le Noire Award!!!!!!!   I say this not out of race, but because her performance is SO lackluster!!!!!!!!  Even the bit actors can't stand the script, and are tired of what is going on here!!!!!!!!!!

                                             Things culminate with Jocelyn's and the Professor's secret coming out, even though neither is arrested, and should be!!!!!!!!!   Jocelyn gets off scott free and sleazebag Cain goes off to prison and to career oblivion, because what else can Roger Bart do after this??????????

                                                Ho Hum, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!  Like, who cares?????????????  If this is how the show is to be conducted this season, you can kiss it goodbye after this year. It needs a spark--Stephanie March or Martha Plimpton--to get it back on track. I would have cited Christine Lahti, but unfortunately the writers unwisely killed off her character!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                  Instead of calling it "Twenty- Five Acts," they should have called the episode "Twenty- Five Sheep To Count Before Falling Asleep!"

                                                    Because, after that, it was "'Nightie, night, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!"