'L&O: CI' team gets better

Newsobserver.com, 11.8.07
By Danny Hooley, Staff Writer

One of my favorite moments in the new season of USA's "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" is when the unkempt and unstable Detective Bobby Goren turns to his partner Alexandra Eames and asks her if he's really ruining her career, as a spiteful perp yells while she's being led away in cuffs.
Having just cracked yet another difficult case with her difficult but brilliant partner, Eames wearily says, "It's too late," and just walks away.

She's half-serious. Vincent D'Onofrio's Goren returns for the seventh season of "Criminal Intent" more unstable than he's ever been -- also "fatter, grayer and scruffier, like he doesn't shave," notes fan Eileen Reed from Wake Forest. "But he's still cute!"

The show's move from NBC to NBC Universal's USA cable channel doesn't mean it's the unloved runt of the litter. It's still the best of the three "L&O" shows, no matter what ratings say. And of the two partnerships on the show -- Goren/Eames and Logan/Fallaci -- Reed and I agree that Goren and Eames still take it hands down.

"They're like an old married couple," Reed says with a laugh. "They bounce off of one another."

We share a laugh about Eames's line to Capt. Ross when he tries to pull her off a murder case.

"My partner doesn't adjust well to change," she says, as Goren paces in the background, out of earshot. More