Law & Order: Criminal Intent/YMMV

And the Fandom Rejoiced: When it was announced that Goren and Eames would be splitting the season with another pair of detectives, fans got upset. Then they announced that the new male detective would be Chris Noth (of the Mothership). When it was announced that Logan would be leaving the show, there was a fan uproar. Then it was announced that the replacement detective would be Detective Zach Nichols (aka Jeff Goldblum), and there was an entirely different kind of fan uproar. And then in fall 2010, it was announced that D'Onofrio and Erbe would be returning for the final season. The resulting joyous explosion was deafening.
Award Snub: Kathryn Erbe and Vincent D'Onofrio received nary an Emmy nomination in their eight years on the show's run, a criminal snub.
Crowning Music of Awesome: The newer theme song that was added somewhere around season 7.
- Which would have sounded awfully familiar to fans of Law and Order Trial By Jury.
Deus Angst Machina: Goren qualifies, if anyone does. Let's see.... his schizophrenic mother hates him, even though he's the only one who takes care of her; his drug-addicted brother gets all the love from their mother; his father - who treated him like shit anyway - turned out not to be his real father; and his biological father turned out to be a murderer, who then gets executed, which on the show NEVER HAPPENS. He gets persecuted by the FBI, ends up in a mental hospital, gets fired, not to mention his health and good looks go to shit, too. This is only a partial list of all the shit that goes down. If anyone can be accused of provoking the wrath of the writer-deities, this character would be definitely be it. The unrelenting, unceasing suffering that occurs was enough to make many fans stop watching the show, out of sheer disgust; quite literally, Goren's relationship with his partner (however you choose to interpret it) was the only thing he had going for him -- no wonder she became his Berserk Button! If anyone earned a happy ending they never got, it's Goren. Shoot the Shaggy Dog, already.
- Even his relationship with Eames was messed with- When Goren goes undercover in season 7 (without her knowing beforehand), Eames almost shoots him in the face when the police raid the apartment. The resulting shouting match puts a strain on their partnership.
Fair Cop: Eames; all of Logan's partners, arguably. And Capt. Deakins. And now Saffron Burrows.
Foe Yay: Goren and Nicole Wallace, so very much. The reason for her obsession with him is described, at one point, as being because she couldn't seduce him.
Glurge: The dark side of glurge is explored in "Faith" -- the murder victim figured out that a girl suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease, who has faced hardship after hardship in her life but pulled through to write an inspiring book about her trials, does not actually exist.
- Worse yet: that episode was Ripped from the Headlines.
Harsher in Hindsight: In the April 2009 episode "Rock Star", a musician falls to his death in an elevator shaft in a building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In November of that same year, Jerry Fuchs, the drummer for various indie rock bands such as !!! and The Juan Maclean, died pretty much the same way in a similar building in the same neighborhood. However, unlike in the episode, where the musician was pushed down the shaft, Fuchs actually fell while trying to jump from a stalled elevator to the next floor. Still pretty damn eerie.
- In the episode "Pas de Deux," the villain is a bank robber (played by Charles Rocket) who is suffering from a terminal illness and plans to kill himself along with his unwitting accomplice. The episode was Rocket's last film appearance; he committed suicide later that year.
He's Just Hiding: A common theory concerning Nicole Wallace's death at the end of season 7. Given that the information came from a less than reliable source and since Nicole has faked her own death before, this isn't entirely unfounded.
Hilarious in Hindsight: In the episode "Collective", Alex uses this rather interesting pun:

"Fangs for the memories."

Paranoia Fuel: Here's a Cold Open. Woman at a restaurant with others. Woman goes to bathroom. Woman is stabbed by a complete stranger in the inner thigh which causes her to bleed out in minutes, too fast to even cry for help. Assailant walks out. Cut to the detectives arriving...
Retroactive Recognition: Jake Weber, Robert Knepper, Michael Emerson, and Viola Davis were all villains in Season 1, before hitting it big with other shows or movies.
Shipping: Goren/Eames has a rather large fanbase. There's fans of Logan/Wheeler (or, really, Logan/his latest partner) as well.
- Logan/Wheeler actually had some resolution, however.
What Could Have Been: Imagine if Goldblum had decided to film a few more episodes for the series ender. Nichols and Goren cracking a case together would've just been awesome.
- Apparently, there were plans to write an episode that revealed that Nicole Wallace wasn't dead, but said plans never came around to making it into an actual episode.

Back to Law & Order: Criminal Intent