I loved this series. I haven't bought it yet because I can't find it here in Italy, who knows why, but I'll get the dvds sooner or later. At least I want the dvds of the first few series, when it was all about Vincent D'Onofrio's Goren. I like D'Onofrio, he's a terrific actor, and I loved his detective Goren very much. Of course I also like his intense eyes, small mouth, perfect teeth, tall figure, and everything, even after his face exploded he still had those eyes, that voice, really cool, but it's not just that, otherwise it would become boring after a while. He's really great, a fantastic actor, and luckily, or maybe just because he was playing him, his character was great as well. Luckily I also liked his partner Alex Eames, which made the first few series very likeable. I really can't understand why he stopped doing it. Whose decision was that? Because with all my good intention I really don't like the episodes with the other detectives, they are just so plain. And Jeff Goldblum, that was a surprise, I usually liked him enough, but here his character is so plain, he's not sympathetic at all, I can't like him. I don't know how that's possible, but his detective is so boring and plain and meaningless.
I loved everything about Goren, I liked that he was never still even when it wasn't him the one talking, even when he was in the background he was always in the part, doing something, making the right expressions, sometimes mimicking the person they were questioning. It's amazing how D'Onofrio can play so many different parts, it's not for everyone. Many actors, when you look at it, keep repeating the same character over and over again: it changes the name, the job, but the spirit of the character is always the same. Not with him, though.
I admit that the plots were of a secondary importance here, I loved the characters and their relationships, their investigations. I didn't care all that much about who did it, frankly. I liked the characters, which is the most important thing, it's the reason I keep watching a series.
I liked when Goren started helping a woman with her cooking so she could answer their questions, and when he cut his own hand to prove a guy could not be the murderer because he couldn't stand the sight of blood (he actually fainted), and all the times he got angry at his suspects, and when he smiled at Eames' jokes, that was adorable, and I liked how good he looked in uniform :-D, and I liked his strange relationship with Nicole, and I liked how troubled he was in the episode when he shouted at a suspect who then "apparently" committed suicide blaming him, and he hit the wall, and the papers were calling him a 'ruthless and incompetent detective', and how Nicole could read him as well as he could read her, understanding that he would have been against that man because he ran out of his poor sick wife, and I liked his interrogation-scenes very much. Goren was such a complex character, very deep, full of understanding, full of pain, full of anger, full of feelings of any kind. I felt for him because sometimes he appeared so full of them he could barely control them, his emotions drifting like mine do all the time.
I liked when they went at a school for gifted children and Eames said "he's feeling very humble right now" :lol: or when they pretended to be married to find information, they were funny :lol:
I liked how he missed Eames when she was away, having a baby, feeling that she would have understood quickly what he meant, what he was thinking.
Sometimes his skills were maybe a bit exaggerated? I mean, he once smelled a woman's hands and said "someone who ate buffalo wings hold her hand" ! and what about when he could clearly see from the bed and the pillow that two people had slept there and that a guy was suffocated by holding his face against the pillow? What stuff do they have in America? Here, a memory-mattress goes back to normal after the person gets up... but in that episode the biggest thing was the coffee: Goren went: you came here with a hot coffee but now is cold, so you came here at least four hours ago.. !what!?! four hours for a coffee to get cold.. again, what is that? How come my tea gets cold so quickly instead?? Are those cups thermos-like?
I liked the scene when that kid hit him and he went 'ouch', and the scene when he held a suspect in his arms having him sort-of-dancing with him to provoke him, and the scene when he went loud and aggressive with a suspect until he realized it wasn't the murderer and felt sorry, and the scenes when he played 'questions' with Nicole, they were very intense, and many many more.
I love Robert Goren very much. Totally. When I watch reruns I always look at the opening credits waiting to see which detective I'm gonna get for that episode, and every time I see him I smile and think: this is gonna be a good one :-)
I don't know what else to say, which is sad because I feel like talking about him more and more, and more.
I need to find these dvds, sooner or later if I won't find them in Italy I'll order the UK edition, or the German edition, since it probably has the English audio and subtitles too. We'll see. At least I want seasons one to three, because season four was not too exciting, actually it was a bit boring. I don't know, he somehow seemed out of spirit.
