TVSquad

(S01E08) It's not that I'm against fancy one-liners for episode titles. I just find it sort of disappointing when you read one that sounds interesting and the episode barely has anything to do with it. The Sopranos and Deadwood are notorious for this. I like my episode titles to be simple, but descriptive. Take Seinfeld and "The Puffy Shirt." Going into that, you got a pretty good idea about the focus of the episode.

Alright, you can tell I'm reaching here because eight episodes in, and we finally got to one that I didn't really enjoy. It was just slow. But we did get a new character. Donna Abandando (played by Gail O'Grady) got hired by Lt. Fancy to be the new detective's secretarial assistant. She seems a little loopy, but it's the type of character that can lighten up some of the more serious scenes. The "tempest in a c-cup?" That would be her and she was in the episode for only a couple of minutes. It would have made far more sense to call this one something along the lines of "The Taxi Cab Butcher." What, too much?

I suggest that as a title because that's what 80% of the episode revolved around. Kelly and Martinez busted some guy (another random guest star you'll recognize) on the suspicion that he shot and killed a cab driver who also happened to be the father of a cop. It was interesting at first because we got to see Kelly really work over a guy in the interrogation room but it got stale fast because it just kept going and going.

Elsewhere, Sipowicz and Medavoy were checking out some illegal activities at a topless bar. All I could think about though was that old New York Post headline, "Headless Body in Topless Bar." It was a worthless storyline, the only payoff being that it led to a date between Andy and Sylvia. She was the ADA who he told off in the pilot episode. I'm pretty sure Sharon Lawrence starts to play a bigger role at this point.

And once again, don't even get me started on Laura's part in this episode. It's honestly as if they have nothing to do with her. If anything, it's a little Law and Order-ish. We get the cop side (fun, exciting) and then we get the D.A. side with Laura (boring, laughable). He boss tried to blackmail her. Big deal. Why is she still in the show at this point?

So I need some help here. While I certainly plan to finish the season out, I need something to get excited about. Comment away and leave me some season one spoilers. I think Medavoy and Donna end up having an affair, I remember hearing about that somewhere... but what else is going to go down? I need some bait folks.