What on earth does Dick Wolf have against his own shows? OC isn't the first Wolf vehicle to start well and then veer wildly off track.
But it's definitely the most disappointing considering the rich backstories within the Law & Order universe, and all the potential this thing had going in.
Tough to process what Wolf and his rotating cast of expendable showrunners are even trying to do here -- pretending Benson doesn't exist, introducing a lazy look-alike character for awkward nonsense straight out of a dated soap opera, shipping Eli off to college at '15,' disappearing Bernie, Kathleen and all the family stuff that was the heart of the Stabler character; renaming Ruth Barrett's love theme to remove all traces of 'Benson and Stabler' and repurposing it so it's used whenever Stabler looks at a rando.
The series has now squandered an incomprehensible 70-plus episodes between OC and SVU, offering not a single substantive conversation between the two leads. There is no universe in which these two would not have logically hashed out their ish by now. Not even a diner cup of coffee? Ridiculous. Does Wolf really think this little of viewers who have watched for decades?
OC started with cinematic photography, a clear direction about a cop reconciling his past, and great B-stories (Jet, Bell & Denise, Flutura etcetera), but is now a rudderless, out-of-character mess. Stabler as some sort of Rambo F-boi is not it guys.
What's most confounding is why Chris Meloni, an executive producer on the series, seems to just be going along with it all, despite the show bailing on most of its original premise.
2 stars - and that's being generous.
But it's definitely the most disappointing considering the rich backstories within the Law & Order universe, and all the potential this thing had going in.
Tough to process what Wolf and his rotating cast of expendable showrunners are even trying to do here -- pretending Benson doesn't exist, introducing a lazy look-alike character for awkward nonsense straight out of a dated soap opera, shipping Eli off to college at '15,' disappearing Bernie, Kathleen and all the family stuff that was the heart of the Stabler character; renaming Ruth Barrett's love theme to remove all traces of 'Benson and Stabler' and repurposing it so it's used whenever Stabler looks at a rando.
The series has now squandered an incomprehensible 70-plus episodes between OC and SVU, offering not a single substantive conversation between the two leads. There is no universe in which these two would not have logically hashed out their ish by now. Not even a diner cup of coffee? Ridiculous. Does Wolf really think this little of viewers who have watched for decades?
OC started with cinematic photography, a clear direction about a cop reconciling his past, and great B-stories (Jet, Bell & Denise, Flutura etcetera), but is now a rudderless, out-of-character mess. Stabler as some sort of Rambo F-boi is not it guys.
What's most confounding is why Chris Meloni, an executive producer on the series, seems to just be going along with it all, despite the show bailing on most of its original premise.
2 stars - and that's being generous.