An Introduction to Detective Goren

James, I know you've been avoiding all the Law & Orders all this time. TiVo just Suggestioned (tm) an episode of Criminal Intent for me, and it happens to be the first episode I ever saw. L&O:CI(tm) is even crazier than most detective shows when it comes to the sheer volumes of trivial knowledge its protagonist just happens to have at his fingertips. Really...even more than Monk! Plus, Det. Goren (Vincent D'Onofrio, medium-fat version) uses his patented Lean-Over-Sideways method of interrogation to force a confession every time, so that we don't have to sit through any court scenes.

Anyway, this episode, "The Pilgrim," is about terrorists, and actually it's kind of a lame episode. But it's the one I always think of, since it introduced me to Det. Goren in the most hilarious way. Here's a scene:

SUBSTITUTE TEACHER
(answering a student, naturally)
Randy asked why the Greek Bible is called the Septuagint. "Septua" means "seventy," and the story is that it took seventy scholars to translate the Hebrew Bible into Greek.

GOREN
(after lurking around)
At the Great Library at Alexandria, Egypt. Right Mr. Edwards?

SUBSTITUTE TEACHER
Right. The library, and its 700,000 books were destroyed by fire over 1300 years ago.

GOREN
My mother was a librarian.

SUBSTITUTE TEACHER
They just built a new library on the site of the original...this time with state-of-the-art smoke detectors.

GOREN
You've been?

SUBSTITUTE TEACHER
Oh, I've read about it. I'm one of five people who actually reads Smithsonian Magazine.

GOREN
Six. One of six.

Notice the totally unnecessary reference to his mother. That's another tactic he's working on I think.

Anyway, later, Goren patiently explains things to his useless girl sidekick...

SCULLY
What's this?

GOREN
It's the Smithsonian article on the new library in Alexandria. When Edwards mentioned smoke detectors it didn't ring a bell.

SCULLY
You actually read this when it came out?

GOREN
(clearly deflecting)
It's the perfect size for my treadmill.

Riiiight.

Well, this is probably one of those things you have to see for yourself. So, I'll TiVoIze an episode of House, M.D. for its ethics-expanding drama, if you Digitally Video Record (tm) a Criminal Intent. Bonus points if you get an episode with Goren's nemesis Olivia d'Abo, the show's only recurring villain -- for some reason she refuses to confess! So frustrating! How are you supposed to solve a crime if the bad guy won't confess?!?! It's a lesson Goren may never learn...