Why Lindsay Must Go, Part 4

[Maya316]

Aside from the dark secret, what was the other one? The romance? I almost don't count that, because it seems like a way to give her some purpose on the show, to mask her overall inadequacies as a character/actress.

I don't know if I'd call it a storyline, but Flack's devotion to Danny has definitely been a bit part of his character, and their friendship is a big element in the show.

Hawkes has smaller stuff, but he has the newbie CSI stuff (sadly overshadowed by Lindsay), the former ME/doctor beats and even some friction with Mac over the case where he knew the victim.

With Lindsay, the other storyline is the baby storyline. No, they didn't spend an entire episode focusing on her fears and worries and excitement, but they focused on those things during scattered moments in S5. And those elements and moments in Flack and Hawkes - that's what I'm getting at, tiny character arcs and moments, not big storylines. If we're to include those as storylines, we'd also have to include Lindsay's "newbie CSI" schtick along with her "just moved from Montana/proving she's tough on the NYPD force" deal; and even that moment she got pissed with Mac for sending her back to the lab in Manhattan Manhunt, or where she butted heads with Stella in that S3 episode with the psychotherapist - as storylines.

She's the Little Miss Perfect in school who everyone hated because she spent her time kissing the teacher's ass. :lol:

Yeah, I can so see that :lol:

Yeah, but where Danny gets moments with all of the other characters despite D/L, Lindsay doesn't get that much at all. Even though the romance looms large, Danny still has a connection with every other character on the show, whereas Lindsay just doesn't. I think that's in large part due to her falling flat as a character much of the time. Even the stuff she has--the demonstrations, conflict with Danny, etc.-- is all repetitive. There's never anything new with her, and as an actress, Belknap doesn't stretch at all.

Danny gets moments with the other characters because that's who he is - naturally emotional, very easy and friendly and open with people. He doesn't really have or need a storyline that's all about him getting closer to people - with the possible exception of Mac. Lindsay is socially awkward and reclusive at best - that's just her character as it is. It usually does take a mini-storyline to make her get closer to people, because she's slow to form strong relationships. But it really seems as though in those little moments where she's just about to grow out of that (maybe scripted, maybe not), where the writers really could go with a story that would be about Lindsay getting closer to someone - they instead decide that it's more important to focus on D/L, lest they take away from the importance of that be-all, end-all relationship I've always felt that the writers/producers decided it wouldn't be as believable that Lindsay was hurt by Danny's pulling away, if she were forming other strong connections on the side.

Really? I always saw Stella as having a certain sophistication, but not quite being a glam girl. I think she spends time on her appearance but doesn't obsess over it. She's kind of in the same category as Calleigh and Catherine.

No, I don't see Stella as obsessed over her appearance...maybe glam-girl isn't the right word, but fashion is a fairly significant part of who Stella is. She's just very interested in fashion and clothes, Tiffany's, designer shoes and lingerie - it's possible to just love that kind of sophisticated stuff without also being obssessed with appearance.

The buck knife, the rope braiding, the slingshot... all of that says tomboy to me. Angell held her own with the guys, so I can sort of see the tomboy side of her, too, though I think a lot of that had to do with having four brothers. She was just strong, probably because she had to be in that family!

Those things scream stereotypical "country girl" rather than "tomboy" to me - that mermaid-girl in Stealing Home was also into rope-braiding, but she didn't seem like the tomboy type. The slingshot is actually what screams "cartoon nerd" to me in Lindsay's character - I mean, who thinks a slingshot is cool these days?

Yeah, Angell's brothers may have played a role in her tomboyish-ness (although even that - four older brothers - is a stereotype), but I was thinking more of the way she was a short-stop as a kid, and of her four brothers she was the only one who wanted to join the police force. Not that it's a typical-guy-thing to want to be a cop, but the way they played on it with Angell in Pay Up made it seem like it was supposed to be seen as a typical guy thing.

Oh, no, not at all--I'm thinking Danny butting heads with Mac or confiding in Flack or offering comfort to Hawkes... the acting is never singular, because the characters are always interacting with each other.

Oh yeah, I agree with that - what I meant by singular is that, well, even when fighting or interacting with another character, the acting is kind of all on you. When you're being viewed as solo, you're usually just selling your own character and his/her reactions. Of course the other actor is important, but it's their job to make their part of the interaction seem convincing, not yours. (I think - I know next to nothing about acting, but this is just how I would think it works.) Whereas with romantic-acting, you're being viewed and sold as part of a set. You almost become one entity with another actor. And it's jointly on both actors to make that entity believable.

Maybe... but Danny and Lindsay don't have a whole lot of chemistry, so I see Anna (and even Carmine) failing in that regard, too. The romance is easy--it panders to fans who are really just watching the show for two characters to hook up.

...To be truthful, I'm complete pants at sensing or judging whether chemistry exists between onscreen characters. :alienblush: I mean, I see little to no chemistry between what I've repeatedly heard are one of TV's hottest pairings (Derek/Meredith on Grey's Anatomy), so I stay away from it altogether. It seems too subjective. I just have to be convinced that the characters actually feel something romantic for each other. And I'd think it'd be hard to sell that, because of the close nature of romantic scenes and romantic implications in general. Two characters hooking up isn't going to pander well to even the most "shippy-gung-ho" fans if the characters are utterly stiff, robotic, and look like they're repulsed by each other.

Honestly, to me it's always Carmine who falls flat as far as selling the romance goes in D/L. I usually buy it when Anna-as-Lindsay indicates that she's into Danny romantically, whereas I rarely buy Danny/Carmine's romantic feelings for Lindsay. [But um, of course I've considered that the false-ness of Carmine's portrayal might be intentional. :lol: I was mostly able to believe back in Season 3 that Danny felt something romantic for Lindsay.]

Maybe arc isn't the right word--elements that flesh out the characters, perhaps. AJ plays Adam very consistently. He's nervous, he's flustered, he likes Stella, he looks up to Danny and Mac... I know who Adam is. Lindsay changes from episode to episode, because of the writing, yes, but also because Anna doesn't inhabit the character in the way the others do. It's a little less glaring in the fourth and fifth season, in large part because it seems like she's had less to do.

But all the moments and mini-storylines and stuff I've listed above are things that have fleshed out Lindsay's character (although yes, it's definitely haphazardly put together, but when looking at the character separate from the writing inconsistencies and the Mary-Sue tendencies, it does come together as a believable person.). But I think perception of who a character is is also kind of subjective - I mean, I think I know who Adam is too, but I wouldn't say he has a crush on Stella or that he looks up to Danny; at least, not the same way he looks up to Mac. I would definitely say he's flustered, nervous, but those are the real constants of his character. Like I'd say Lindsay is aloof and socially-awkward - another real constant.

To me, it felt like she was reading the script and responding to the obvious cues. She just didn't seem natural in that scene. I felt the script there. And I never feel the script (unless the lines are hugely awkward or something) with any of the other actors.

The hand on Danny's arm was earlier, when they were out somewhere, and looking at the action I remember thinking, "Gee the script/director probably called for her to put her hand on Danny's arm." It was robotic in a way.

Hm, I'd have to watch it again to see the arm thing. What I liked about the All Access outburst is that I very easily saw it coming throughout the episode - I remember thinking that any moment now, she's going to snap; and then when she bit Danny's head off later, I liked how it seemed very obvious that she was trying to reign in her emotions. That's why it came off natural to me, although I'm sure the script called for her to do both things.

 

[Cyn-B-Demented]

I had an interesting conversation the other day with my sister about Lindsay. Well I thought it was interesting. Basically, my sister has only ever seen two entire NY episodes, the first one being the season 5 finale, and the second one being 'Page Turner' (in that order). I don't really remember Lindsay's role in either of those episodes, but my sister, when describing all the characters and her opinions on them, could only come up with 'weak' for Lindsay. With all the other characters she could see that they may have a useful purpose and potentially interesting storylines, but she just couldn't see why they would have such a weak character in Lindsay? And that was from only two episodes...

That tells a lot about an actor's performance and the impact of the performance (or the absence of impact, in this case)... I had interesting conversations with my fiancé about CSI:NY and the upcoming season today (we both can't wait!) but he hasn't watch all the episodes because he works late so I have to do much explaining sometimes. As for reruns, well, he's not -that- of a fan :lol: Anyways, every time I mention Lindsay/Anna he NEVER remembers her. He always look at me with a puzzled look on his face and question marks in his eyes. But he never had problems remembering any other actors on the show, first one he remembered was Flack/Eddie, and he can even remember guest appearances and recurring actors... Yikes! I mean, he remembered Kyle Gallner (as Reed Garrett) but he can't remember who Lindsay is!

 

[Top41]

With Lindsay, the other storyline is the baby storyline. No, they didn't spend an entire episode focusing on her fears and worries and excitement, but they focused on those things during scattered moments in S5.

But the fact that it was so heavily focused on Danny and his reactions makes it seem disproportionate--as though they didn't really want to spend the time/character development on her reactions.

Lindsay is socially awkward and reclusive at best - that's just her character as it is. It usually does take a mini-storyline to make her get closer to people, because she's slow to form strong relationships. But it really seems as though in those little moments where she's just about to grow out of that (maybe scripted, maybe not), where the writers really could go with a story that would be about Lindsay getting closer to someone - they instead decide that it's more important to focus on D/L, lest they take away from the importance of that be-all, end-all relationship I've always felt that the writers/producers decided it wouldn't be as believable that Lindsay was hurt by Danny's pulling away, if she were forming other strong connections on the side.

Maybe... but she's been on the show for four years and doesn't really have a bond with anyone else other than Danny. That's not true of any other character on the show. Sometimes it just feels like she's so in the background--and when she's not, it always involves Danny.

Those things scream stereotypical "country girl" rather than "tomboy" to me - that mermaid-girl in Stealing Home was also into rope-braiding, but she didn't seem like the tomboy type. The slingshot is actually what screams "cartoon nerd" to me in Lindsay's character - I mean, who thinks a slingshot is cool these days?

Yeah, I can kind of see that. Maybe dork rather than nerd? I think of sci fi or math geniuses when I think of nerds. Lindsay can be nerdy, too, though.

Oh yeah, I agree with that - what I meant by singular is that, well, even when fighting or interacting with another character, the acting is kind of all on you. When you're being viewed as solo, you're usually just selling your own character and his/her reactions. Of course the other actor is important, but it's their job to make their part of the interaction seem convincing, not yours. (I think - I know next to nothing about acting, but this is just how I would think it works.) Whereas with romantic-acting, you're being viewed and sold as part of a set. You almost become one entity with another actor. And it's jointly on both actors to make that entity believable.

I'm not versed in acting either, but I think who you're opposite is always important. I remember Eddie making a comment in his last CSI Files interview about playing opposite Matt McTigue (think that's the guy's name--Elgers, the Neo Nazi) and how good he was and how that changed the way Eddie approached him as Flack. So I think it's not just romances where it's important who you're playing across.

My point with the romance is that it kind of masks Anna Belknap's inadequacies as an actress. People get so wrapped up in the OMG--they're kissing! and don't look beyond that. And then Lindsay becomes The Girl Who's Banging Danny rather than her own character.

...To be truthful, I'm complete pants at sensing or judging whether chemistry exists between onscreen characters. :alienblush: I mean, I see little to no chemistry between what I've repeatedly heard are one of TV's hottest pairings (Derek/Meredith on Grey's Anatomy), so I stay away from it altogether. It seems too subjective. I just have to be convinced that the characters actually feel something romantic for each other. And I'd think it'd be hard to sell that, because of the close nature of romantic scenes and romantic implications in general. Two characters hooking up isn't going to pander well to even the most "shippy-gung-ho" fans if the characters are utterly stiff, robotic, and look like they're repulsed by each other.

Yeah, but how often does it ever look like two people on screen are repulsed by each other? Even when the chemistry is lacking, I've never seen that. Chemistry is to some extent in the eye of the beholder, and ultimately some fans like one pairing while others like another.

Honestly, to me it's always Carmine who falls flat as far as selling the romance goes in D/L. I usually buy it when Anna-as-Lindsay indicates that she's into Danny romantically, whereas I rarely buy Danny/Carmine's romantic feelings for Lindsay. [But um, of course I've considered that the false-ness of Carmine's portrayal might be intentional. :lol: I was mostly able to believe back in Season 3 that Danny felt something romantic for Lindsay.]

I'll totally give you that. He's never seemed that into the romance and it shows. He had a much more convincing chemistry with Rikki.

Hm, I'd have to watch it again to see the arm thing. What I liked about the All Access outburst is that I very easily saw it coming throughout the episode - I remember thinking that any moment now, she's going to snap; and then when she bit Danny's head off later, I liked how it seemed very obvious that she was trying to reign in her emotions. That's why it came off natural to me, although I'm sure the script called for her to do both things.

I felt the script in her reading and didn't find any subtlety in the build. It's been ages since I've seen the episode though so I can't really be more specific. I should rewatch it, but for myriad reasons I hate that episode more than any other. :lol:

I had an interesting conversation the other day with my sister about Lindsay. Well I thought it was interesting. Basically, my sister has only ever seen two entire NY episodes, the first one being the season 5 finale, and the second one being 'Page Turner' (in that order). I don't really remember Lindsay's role in either of those episodes, but my sister, when describing all the characters and her opinions on them, could only come up with 'weak' for Lindsay. With all the other characters she could see that they may have a useful purpose and potentially interesting storylines, but she just couldn't see why they would have such a weak character in Lindsay? And that was from only two episodes...

That tells a lot about an actor's performance and the impact of the performance (or the absence of impact, in this case)... I had interesting conversations with my fiancé about CSI:NY and the upcoming season today (we both can't wait!) but he hasn't watch all the episodes because he works late so I have to do much explaining sometimes. As for reruns, well, he's not -that- of a fan :lol: Anyways, every time I mention Lindsay/Anna he NEVER remembers her. He always look at me with a puzzled look on his face and question marks in his eyes. But he never had problems remembering any other actors on the show, first one he remembered was Flack/Eddie, and he can even remember guest appearances and recurring actors... Yikes! I mean, he remembered Kyle Gallner (as Reed Garrett) but he can't remember who Lindsay is!

I've totally noticed that, too. She's just background a lot of the time. She's a weak character and rarely stands out for me unless she's annoying me. And to be fair, she annoys me a lot less lately, but I think that's in large part because she's been marginalized over the last two seasons.

 

[Cyn-B-Demented]

Yeah, she totally is background. To be honest, she never really annoyed me but I'm generally bothered by the character and what they have done with it to cover Anna's pregnancies. I feel like it's these unpredicted situations that derived them way too much from their original plans for Lindsay as well as for Danny and not solely Anna's performance. Instead of integrating the pregnancy into the show, I would have prefer if they would have come up with a very common story of a cop being injured on the job. She gets time off to recover from the injury, she comes back like it's no big deal and badabing! we saved the day! Because if Rikki was supposed to come back with Danny's child instead of Lindsay, I would have want that way more than this D/L situation. Danny and Rikki would have made more sense to me. What they shared together because of Reuben gave them more solid ground and even before Reuben's death I felt there was something between them. I don't know if I'm the only one who felt that way about them

By the way, I would jump in the huge-ass conversation with Maya and you (either here or the other thread) but I don't know if I have that much patience that you guys have :lol: Juggling with a language that is not my mother tongue gets rough on the brain after a while lol But it's an interesting exchange, this debate/conversation. I cannot wait to debate about Kaye :lol: So sorry if my post kinda breaks your flow lol

 

[Maya316]

But the fact that it was so heavily focused on Danny and his reactions makes it seem disproportionate--as though they didn't really want to spend the time/character development on her reactions.

Or because they couldn't. Her schedule might not have allowed for it. I'm also not sure we can totally ignore the fact that Danny really is the only character aside from the two leading ones who gets a lot of focus on his reactions and his character development. I think that played a huge role in who was the more focused on.

Maybe... but she's been on the show for four years and doesn't really have a bond with anyone else other than Danny. That's not true of any other character on the show. Sometimes it just feels like she's so in the background--and when she's not, it always involves Danny.

I wouldn't say she doesn't bond with anyone else on the show, although yes, we've never seen any other relationships develop other than the one she has with Danny. But it's simple fact that Lindsay was literally brought onto the show for Danny. That was the only reason her character was created at all. And they haven't really let her grow or develop from that - that's why I think they specifically tamp down on (or shaft) the mini-moments that indicate she might be forming a bond with someone else. To promote D/L. But I think that if she weren't a character with potential, we wouldn't even see those tiny moments that she does have.

My point with the romance is that it kind of masks Anna Belknap's inadequacies as an actress. People get so wrapped up in the OMG--they're kissing! and don't look beyond that. And then Lindsay becomes The Girl Who's Banging Danny rather than her own character.

..

I'll totally give you that. He's never seemed that into the romance and it shows. He had a much more convincing chemistry with Rikki.

This is kind of my point right there with the skill it takes to do romantic-acting. It's hard, I think, to fake that you have romantic feelings for someone you really don't (or someone you're just not attracted to). And that becomes obvious with Carmine's acting, because he's an excellent actor in every other respect. But if romance was just "easy" acting for inadequate actors, it wouldn't show that Carmine's not into the D/L romance. He'd be able to pull it off. He's certainly not the first actor who's had to play opposite an actress they're not attracted to. I highly doubt Belknap is attracted to Carmine - but she pulls it off. I think it takes skill, different (maybe more) skills than are required for character-oriented acting. I'm sure it takes a lot of talent to convincingly act out grief, or anger, strong friendship - but it's different. I mean, most people would just be grieved by the loss of a ten-year-old boy, even if they didn't know him - I don't think it'd be as hard to pull that off.

ETA (because sorry, I just saw one last thing in your post!): I totally agree that huge parts of Lindsay's character tend to just melt into D/L...but I'm not sure even the majority of Lindsay fans are just Lindsay-fans because they're D/L fans. From what I've seen, they seem to be rabidly loyal to Lindsay in the D/L equation rather than Danny - weirdly forgiving of the way she messed Danny around in S3, but ready to tear Danny's head off and eat it for the "cheating" in S4 - I'd go so far as to say that she's not just "the girl banging Danny" with them.

 

[Top41]

Yeah, she totally is background. To be honest, she never really annoyed me but I'm generally bothered by the character and what they have done with it to cover Anna's pregnancies. I feel like it's these unpredicted situations that derived them way too much from their original plans for Lindsay as well as for Danny and not solely Anna's performance. Instead of integrating the pregnancy into the show, I would have prefer if they would have come up with a very common story of a cop being injured on the job. She gets time off to recover from the injury, she comes back like it's no big deal and badabing! we saved the day! Because if Rikki was supposed to come back with Danny's child instead of Lindsay, I would have want that way more than this D/L situation. Danny and Rikki would have made more sense to me. What they shared together because of Reuben gave them more solid ground and even before Reuben's death I felt there was something between them. I don't know if I'm the only one who felt that way about them

No, I definitely did, too. There was chemistry there--it was a messed up situation, but it was interesting. It exposed Danny's damage just as much as the romance with Lindsay does, but in a completely different way. And at least it didn't make him look like a lapdog.

By the way, I would jump in the huge-ass conversation with Maya and you (either here or the other thread) but I don't know if I have that much patience that you guys have :lol: Juggling with a language that is not my mother tongue gets rough on the brain after a while lol But it's an interesting exchange, this debate/conversation. I cannot wait to debate about Kaye :lol: So sorry if my post kinda breaks your flow lol

Not at all--you should jump in! I know our long posts are kind of intimidating :lol: but short posts work in that thread as well.

Or because they couldn't. Her schedule might not have allowed for it. I'm also not sure we can totally ignore the fact that Danny really is the only character aside from the two leading ones who gets a lot of focus on his reactions and his character development. I think that played a huge role in who was the more focused on.

True, though I don't think originally the character was designed that way. I think Carmine's performance and the way the fans really took to that character are a big part of the reason a lot storylines get thrown his way. Could "Trapped" have worked with any other character on this show? I don't think so. Danny's unique.

I wouldn't say she doesn't bond with anyone else on the show, although yes, we've never seen any other relationships develop other than the one she has with Danny. But it's simple fact that Lindsay was literally brought onto the show for Danny. That was the only reason her character was created at all.

I don't think she was, though. I think originally she was brought on the show to lighten it up--she was part of a push to make the show less gritty and urban. I agree that the romance was there from the beginning--there was nothing organic about it at all, as opposed to say, Eric and Calleigh on Miami, who had this strong friendship that grew into love. It was completely manufactured, but Anna did nothing to distinguish Lindsay outside of it. I realize she had a disadvantage in that regard since Danny was already established, but at the same time, the dark secret storyline was hers right up until that last part and she bungled it with awkward emoting and cringe-worthy crying.

And they haven't really let her grow or develop from that - that's why I think they specifically tamp down on (or shaft) the mini-moments that indicate she might be forming a bond with someone else. To promote D/L. But I think that if she weren't a character with potential, we wouldn't even see those tiny moments that she does have.

But a good actress would give us more from those moments, something beyond the script. She just doesn't. I'd think after four years there'd be some feeling of real connection between her and anyone else other than Danny, but there's really not much.

This is kind of my point right there with the skill it takes to do romantic-acting. It's hard, I think, to fake that you have romantic feelings for someone you really don't (or someone you're just not attracted to). And that becomes obvious with Carmine's acting, because he's an excellent actor in every other respect.

Yeah, he's just not so good at pretending to be attracted to her. :lol: But I think part of that is that the "punching bag" stuff from season three never sat well with him--if he as an actor is questioning why Danny would keep doing what he's doing, that's a big conflict. I get that. She's such a plain jane compared to Danny, too... and then on top of that she's not even nice to him! It was probably hard for him to rationalize in his head when it came to approaching the character.

But if romance was just "easy" acting for inadequate actors, it wouldn't show that Carmine's not into the D/L romance. He'd be able to pull it off.

I think it's his particular Achilles heel, personally. Some actors are great in romance scenes, but look kind of silly in action ones. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. And for him, I really think it is the thing with Lindsay, because he never had problems opposite Rikki or in the flirtation scenes with Maka or Aiden. Hell, I think he's more ready to give it up for Flack than Lindsay sometimes! :lol:

He's certainly not the first actor who's had to play opposite an actress they're not attracted to. I highly doubt Belknap is attracted to Carmine - but she pulls it off. I think it takes skill, different (maybe more) skills than are required for character-oriented acting. I'm sure it takes a lot of talent to convincingly act out grief, or anger, strong friendship - but it's different. I mean, most people would just be grieved by the loss of a ten-year-old boy, even if they didn't know him - I don't think it'd be as hard to pull that off.

Yeah, but it's still pretend, just like the romance. I think it's easier to pretend to have feelings for your cute co-star (and she's said in many interviews how cute she thinks he is ) than it is to act devastated over the loss of a kid you know didn't actually die.

ETA (because sorry, I just saw one last thing in your post!): I totally agree that huge parts of Lindsay's character tend to just melt into D/L...but I'm not sure even the majority of Lindsay fans are just Lindsay-fans because they're D/L fans. From what I've seen, they seem to be rabidly loyal to Lindsay in the D/L equation rather than Danny - weirdly forgiving of the way she messed Danny around in S3, but ready to tear Danny's head off and eat it for the "cheating" in S4 - I'd go so far as to say that she's not just "the girl banging Danny" with them.

Oh, that's absolutely true--there are some fans who see Lindsay as their proxy into Danny's pants, hence the over-empathizing with her and the complete lack of sympathy for him. She's kind of a Mary Sue stand in for a lot of the plain janes who would like have the hottie for themselves. Because she's so undefined as a character, it's easy for them to slip into her shoes in their heads.

That is by no means true of all Lindsay or DL fans though--certainly not the ones here at this site. And not most of them, I wouldn't think--I think a lot of people like the pairing for its opposites attract appeal. I've loved some pairings for that reason myself. If I liked Lindsay more and Danny didn't seem so damaged in the relationship, I might like DL more.

 

[Maya316]

True, though I don't think originally the character was designed that way. I think Carmine's performance and the way the fans really took to that character are a big part of the reason a lot storylines get thrown his way. Could "Trapped" have worked with any other character on this show? I don't think so. Danny's unique.

Yeah, I don't think "Trapped" could've worked as well with any other character (except of course Mac or Stella). Of course Carmine's performance and fan response might've had a lot to do with the extra storylines. But I also think Danny was planned as a very interesting character from, if not the beginning, very shortly after the show started. Even in S1, Danny was comparatively getting a truckload of storylines, far more than the other secondary characters. (Crime and Misdemeanour, Tanglewood, Dove Commission, On the Job, and there might even be more).

I don't think she was, though. I think originally she was brought on the show to lighten it up--she was part of a push to make the show less gritty and urban. I agree that the romance was there from the beginning--there was nothing organic about it at all, as opposed to say, Eric and Calleigh on Miami, who had this strong friendship that grew into love. It was completely manufactured, but Anna did nothing to distinguish Lindsay outside of it. I realize she had a disadvantage in that regard since Danny was already established, but at the same time, the dark secret storyline was hers right up until that last part and she bungled it with awkward emoting and cringe-worthy crying.

I really think especially in her first season, Anna was the only thing distinguishing Lindsay outside of D/L and Mary-Sue-dom. Lindsay as she was written in S2 (at least, until late-S2) was basically peppy and endearing and substance-less unless she was reacting to Danny. And given that literally eight words into her first dialogue on the show, the D/L was already being set up...the writers did not have a purpose for her beyond D/L. Oh sure, give her a "dark", completely undefined secret to make her even half-interesting to the viewers outside of D/L, but if they'd intended Lindsay to be anything else, I think they wouldn't have needed to add her character so soon after Ferlito left. I also think they would have waited to add her, and put more thought and work into her. I agree they were trying to lighten the show up, but why the rush? CSI: Miami lasted about five seasons with Calleigh being the only female CSI on the show, it wasn't urgent for a secondary female to have been added to NY. It's actually why I'm half-terrified of the rush to add Kaye Sullivan to the regular cast in S6, especially in light of Angell's death and the way we've seen her character being set up so far. I may be completely off-base with this suspicion, but I'm worried there's only one reason they're adding her. (Either Flack or Hawkes)

But a good actress would give us more from those moments, something beyond the script. She just doesn't. I'd think after four years there'd be some feeling of real connection between her and anyone else other than Danny, but there's really not much.

What the actors/actresses give us beyond the script might be subjective, though. I mean, I think Belknap adds a lot to Lindsay's character beyond the script, though many fans of the show feel that it's an undesirable element. I totally saw unscripted tension building in Lindsay until she snapped in All Access. I'm able to buy that Hawkes and Lindsay have a degree of unscripted connection between them, even if all they talk about is work - Lindsay seems more comfortable around him than she does around any other character, except Danny. And I'm unsure whether the little "Montana" moment between them in "Taxi" was scripted or not, but I could believe that it wasn't. To me, her aloofness gives her surface-cheerfulness an interesting, unscripted dimension that probably wouldn't exist if she were played as a genuinely-warm person. (I do think this is Belknap's acting, because Belknap seems warmer in the few interviews I've seen than Lindsay has ever been onscreen.) That's why I think moments like the Stella/Lindsay one in "Thing about Heroes" come off so significantly; had it been a scene taking place between Hawkes and Stella, or even Hawkes and Flack, I don't think I'd've even looked twice; because it's not a big deal for any of those characters to be reaching out. But Stella seemed to realize what a big deal it was for Lindsay.

Yeah, he's just not so good at pretending to be attracted to her. :lol: But I think part of that is that the "punching bag" stuff from season three never sat well with him--if he as an actor is questioning why Danny would keep doing what he's doing, that's a big conflict. I get that. She's such a plain jane compared to Danny, too... and then on top of that she's not even nice to him! It was probably hard for him to rationalize in his head when it came to approaching the character.

Good point about Danny, although I have to say a lot of Carmine's flat D/L moments came from S2, and to a lesser extent, S3 (that "Marry me" line in Super Men? I still cringe when I see it :lol. But yeah, it goes to show that it's not as easy as just stepping into your character's head and feeling what they feel when it comes to romance - or, for that matter, anything else. The actors' conflicts (or confusion) get in the way, and it's hard to overcome. Anna Belknap might likewise have flubbed the "dark secret" storyline of S3 because she didn't understand how the hell Lindsay could've been at all functional after going through that, never mind why she would've become a cop.

I think it's his particular Achilles heel, personally. Some actors are great in romance scenes, but look kind of silly in action ones. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. And for him, I really think it is the thing with Lindsay, because he never had problems opposite Rikki or in the flirtation scenes with Maka or Aiden. Hell, I think he's more ready to give it up for Flack than Lindsay sometimes! :lol:

True. And the opposite is completely true also, but that doesn't mean one kind of scene or genre takes less skill to act than another. As for Maka/Aiden, I think that might've been easier. Those scenes were just idle, playful flirtation. I don't think actual romantic feelings were supposed to be involved on either side. It was likely supposed to grow into more between Aiden/Danny later, but it clearly wasn't at that point yet. I get the feeling that ideally, D/L is supposed to be this Twilight-like, fates-colliding romance (and being fair, it's downright impossible to play that successfully - even the actors in the Twilight movie fell short). I definitely agree Carmine didn't seem to have any problems with Rikki, but you know, it's entirely possible he just found it easier to pretend to be attracted to Rikki (maybe he didn't like the short hair, either? )

Yeah, but it's still pretend, just like the romance. I think it's easier to pretend to have feelings for your cute co-star (and she's said in many interviews how cute she thinks he is ) than it is to act devastated over the loss of a kid you know didn't actually die.

I'm not sure - I remember an interview I read somewhere about "Pay Up", about the cast's genuine sadness over Vaugier's leaving helping them (Eddie Cahill in particular) translate that over into the grief over Angell's death. And that just makes sense, because people feel sadness all the time, and most of the time the very idea of a kid being dead is sad enough to bring tons of emotion to the fore. I'm totally sure Belknap thinks Carmine is cute (because um, who couldn't:lol, but she's married, isn't she? Of course being married doesn't remove the possibility that she might be attracted, but I think that would add at least another uncomfortable conflict that's at least as hard to get over as "I'm just not attracted to this person", or "I can't see why my character would be attracted".

Oh, that's absolutely true--there are some fans who see Lindsay as their proxy into Danny's pants, hence the over-empathizing with her and the complete lack of sympathy for him. She's kind of a Mary Sue stand in for a lot of the plain janes who would like have the hottie for themselves. Because she's so undefined as a character, it's easy for them to slip into her shoes in their heads.

That is by no means true of all Lindsay or DL fans though--certainly not the ones here at this site. And not most of them, I wouldn't think--I think a lot of people like the pairing for its opposites attract appeal. I've loved some pairings for that reason myself. If I liked Lindsay more and Danny didn't seem so damaged in the relationship, I might like DL more.

Exactly; I don't mean to generalize, and I know for a fact that there are people attracted to (or repelled from) D/L for a score of reasons. But from what I've seen in places like Fanfiction.Net - where it's downright impossible to find good Lindsay-character fic among the masses of DL fluff - there seem to be so many fans that over-identify with her. With those fans, it's not about who Lindsay as a character is, it's about them being able to project on her. But even that strongly indicates that it's not really Danny they're tuning in to see every week on CSINY, it's the girl they overidentify with. It's sort of like the Twilight effect (the main conflict between fans of that series being Edward/Bella vs. Jacob/Bella, despite the fact that Bella herself is little more than a cipher with a book written from her POV). That girl is only as good as the hot, interesting guy propping her up - but in my experience, that usually just means the guy himself is interchangeable, so long as he's hot and interesting. I'm sure those D/L fans would prefer it if NY stuck to D/L; but if the show ever did jump ship and decide to pair Lindsay with Hawkes/Flack/Adam/Marty Pino/any-completely-random-hot-interesting-guy, my guess is that a good chunk of those D/L fans would likewise jump ship with the show. Whereas how many D/L fans did we see jump ship to Danny/Rikki after "Right Next Door"?

ETA: Just saw this!

Originally Posted by Cyn-B-Demented:
By the way, I would jump in the huge-ass conversation with Maya and you (either here or the other thread) but I don't know if I have that much patience that you guys have :lol: Juggling with a language that is not my mother tongue gets rough on the brain after a while lol But it's an interesting exchange, this debate/conversation. I cannot wait to debate about Kaye :lol: So sorry if my post kinda breaks your flow lol

LOL, trust me - I cannot wait to start debating about Kaye Sullivan :devil:

 

[JellyBelly]

Yeah, he's just not so good at pretending to be attracted to her. :lol: But I think part of that is that the "punching bag" stuff from season three never sat well with him--if he as an actor is questioning why Danny would keep doing what he's doing, that's a big conflict. I get that. She's such a plain jane compared to Danny, too... and then on top of that she's not even nice to him! It was probably hard for him to rationalize in his head when it came to approaching the character.

I consciously decided to stay out of this particular debate for a while, mainly because we have no idea whether Carmine struggles to relay attraction (if in fact he does struggle) because of any aesthetic shortfalls and I admit to feeling more than a little uncomfortable speculating such things. But, the urge to say my piece got the better of me:lol:.

I agree that Carmine has openly struggled with the 'punching bag' syndrome from S3 and that may have impacted his enthusiasm for how things developed at that time. But, I don't believe that an actor needs to be physically attracted to their love interest in order to make it convincing. Admittedly, I can see that being tricky if said actor finds the love interest repulsive, but I doubt that's the case here. Lindsay/Anna is hardly a troll. I don't even see her as the 'plane Jane' that you see. To me, she is pretty enough, just not in the uber glamorous way that most of the other women in the show are.

I actually don't find it that much of a stretch that Danny would 'go for her'. I'm not a great believer in couples having to 'match' in that sense, but I appreciate that there's a basic societal conditioning that prompts people to seek out partners of a similar social standing and attractiveness. I don't really see Danny and Lindsay as particularly confounding that theory. In fact, both Danny and Flack seem to me to be men who put glamour relatively low down on their list of 'must haves' in a girl - they both have seemed fairly intolerant of the veneer that many women (and a fair few men) hide behind. Not that either of them would be put off by a woman who was more openly hot, as long as she had substance to her personality.

Now, I do get the whole 'personality' aspect of attractiveness. Even the most beautiful people can be unattractive if they are mean, shallow, vindictive etc. I guess the issue here is whether Danny sees Lindsay that way, which clearly he doesn't - I don't even think Carmine sees Lindsay that way, mainly because I don't think it was ever intended for her to be that way (no matter how she is perceived by some). Even more to the point, if the issue we're debating is one where Carmine struggles to portray being attracted to Lindsay because of personality then I'd have to debate his views on Anna's personality (which obviously I can't because I don't know them). Now I've completely confused myself as to whether I'm talking about characters or actors - I guess that's the problem with discussing if one character's 'apparent' lack of passion for another is down to the actor just not finding them attractive enough. Dodgy territory really.

I think it's his particular Achilles heel, personally. Some actors are great in romance scenes, but look kind of silly in action ones. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. And for him, I really think it is the thing with Lindsay, because he never had problems opposite Rikki or in the flirtation scenes with Maka or Aiden. Hell, I think he's more ready to give it up for Flack than Lindsay sometimes! :lol:

If anything, I think Carmine's achilles heel is more that he busts out his game for the angst ridden, overly emotional scenes yet occasionally falls a little flat on the everyday continuity. Unfortunately for him, Danny's relationship with Lindsay is more everyday continuity than overly emotional imo. Danny's relationship with Rikki was angst ridden gold whereas Danny and Lindsay have only ever had the angsty undertone at best - their relationship has never been portrayed in an overly passionate sense. Of course, I could be completely way off in putting that down to the on and off nature of their relationship, and really it may all be because the actor's are seriously lacking in the chemistry dept - I don't think so though.

 

[Maya316]

II consciously decided to stay out of this particular debate for a while, mainly because we have no idea whether Carmine struggles to relay attraction (if in fact he does struggle) because of any aesthetic shortfalls and I admit to feeling more than a little uncomfortable speculating such things. But, the urge to say my piece got the better of me:lol:.

I agree that Carmine has openly struggled with the 'punching bag' syndrome from S3 and that may have impacted his enthusiasm for how things developed at that time. But, I don't believe that an actor needs to be physically attracted to their love interest in order to make it convincing. Admittedly, I can see that being tricky if said actor finds the love interest repulsive, but I doubt that's the case here. Lindsay/Anna is hardly a troll. I don't even see her as the 'plane Jane' that you see. To me, she is pretty enough, just not in the uber glamorous way that most of the other women in the show are.

I completely agree with this; we can't really speculate on the out-of-story factors affecting Carmine's performance in the D/L-love story. And yeah - I've seen people refer to Anna Belknap as a "mega-hottie" and "the cutie on CSI:NY" before, so I doubt the specific problem is that he finds her physically repulsive...but there are a thousand factors affecting why you just might not find someone attractive, or be uncomfortable even pretending to find them attractive - no matter how cute you think they are. Of course I don't know either Belknap or Carmine, so can't speculate on the factors. The bottom line is that Carmine really falls short in convincing me of D-->L. And that more than anything tells me that romantic-acting is downright difficult, because he's a fabulous actor otherwise. It's not possible to say Belknap is a less-talented actress because her strength appears to be with subtle/romantic acting the way Carmine's appears to be with high-angst acting (you definitely have a point about the high-drama of Danny/Rikki).

 

[Top41]

Yeah, I don't think "Trapped" could've worked as well with any other character (except of course Mac or Stella).

Neither Mac nor Stella would have pressed that big red button. Nor reacted the same at the end (or throughout). I think "Trapped" was such a great episode because it played on Danny's unique traits as a character--it was a story born of character, rather than a character reacting to a story.

Of course Carmine's performance and fan response might've had a lot to do with the extra storylines. But I also think Danny was planned as a very interesting character from, if not the beginning, very shortly after the show started. Even in S1, Danny was comparatively getting a truckload of storylines, far more than the other secondary characters. (Crime and Misdemeanour, Tanglewood, Dove Commission, On the Job, and there might even be more).

Agreed, though I think the character became an instant fan favorite, which led to him getting a lot of focus. The two things dovetailed.

I really think especially in her first season, Anna was the only thing distinguishing Lindsay outside of D/L and Mary-Sue-dom. Lindsay as she was written in S2 (at least, until late-S2) was basically peppy and endearing and substance-less unless she was reacting to Danny.

But she also was written to be driven and haunted. Anna never brought any of that subtlety in. It was all big outbursts and sullenness, which I think detracted from the gradations we were supposed to see in her character. She failed at making Lindsay warm and likable... and then she also didn't convey that Lindsay wasn't just shrill and brittle, that there was something behind it. Save for "Stealing Home"--that obsession that she showed when pursuing the killer and his motive really was conveyed well, and made her so much more interesting to me--but sadly, that was never really seen again.

And given that literally eight words into her first dialogue on the show, the D/L was already being set up...the writers did not have a purpose for her beyond D/L. Oh sure, give her a "dark", completely undefined secret to make her even half-interesting to the viewers outside of D/L, but if they'd intended Lindsay to be anything else, I think they wouldn't have needed to add her character so soon after Ferlito left. I also think they would have waited to add her, and put more thought and work into her. I agree they were trying to lighten the show up, but why the rush? CSI: Miami lasted about five seasons with Calleigh being the only female CSI on the show, it wasn't urgent for a secondary female to have been added to NY.

Only two and a half really (halfway through season one to the beginning of season four, when Natalia was brought in), but I think Lindsay came as part of the lightening up the show package. I think the romance did, too.

What the actors/actresses give us beyond the script might be subjective, though. I mean, I think Belknap adds a lot to Lindsay's character beyond the script, though many fans of the show feel that it's an undesirable element. I totally saw unscripted tension building in Lindsay until she snapped in All Access.

I doubt it was unscripted, in part because her acting in that episode felt so obvious. I felt the script at every point in the episode with her--that was the first time I really put my finger on what bothered me about her acting. I don't mind aloof characters, but I like consistency--a character can't be bubbly and light-hearted one episode and aloof the next. There was no character consistency there, which made it hard to warm to or even get a handle on her as a character in the second season.

I'm able to buy that Hawkes and Lindsay have a degree of unscripted connection between them, even if all they talk about is work - Lindsay seems more comfortable around him than she does around any other character, except Danny. And I'm unsure whether the little "Montana" moment between them in "Taxi" was scripted or not, but I could believe that it wasn't.

It was indeed scripted, and felt totally unnatural, IMO--why would Hawkes pick up Danny's nickname for her three seasons later, after Danny himself had stopped using it? It was one of the endless "she's from Montana"/DL reminders that keep coming up because there's not much else to her character.

To me, her aloofness gives her surface-cheerfulness an interesting, unscripted dimension that probably wouldn't exist if she were played as a genuinely-warm person. (I do think this is Belknap's acting, because Belknap seems warmer in the few interviews I've seen than Lindsay has ever been onscreen.)

I've never really gotten that impression of her, but it's hard to tell what anyone is like from a brief interview clip.

Good point about Danny, although I have to say a lot of Carmine's flat D/L moments came from S2, and to a lesser extent, S3 (that "Marry me" line in Super Men? I still cringe when I see it :lol. But yeah, it goes to show that it's not as easy as just stepping into your character's head and feeling what they feel when it comes to romance - or, for that matter, anything else. The actors' conflicts (or confusion) get in the way, and it's hard to overcome. Anna Belknap might likewise have flubbed the "dark secret" storyline of S3 because she didn't understand how the hell Lindsay could've been at all functional after going through that, never mind why she would've become a cop.

Maybe, though her character was brought in with that storyline, so it was her job to work it into her performance all the way through, and reconcile it. It's Carmine's job to sell Danny's feelings, too, but I think doing an about face for an established character is a little harder.

True. And the opposite is completely true also, but that doesn't mean one kind of scene or genre takes less skill to act than another. As for Maka/Aiden, I think that might've been easier. Those scenes were just idle, playful flirtation. I don't think actual romantic feelings were supposed to be involved on either side. It was likely supposed to grow into more between Aiden/Danny later, but it clearly wasn't at that point yet. I get the feeling that ideally, D/L is supposed to be this Twilight-like, fates-colliding romance (and being fair, it's downright impossible to play that successfully - even the actors in the Twilight movie fell short). I definitely agree Carmine didn't seem to have any problems with Rikki, but you know, it's entirely possible he just found it easier to pretend to be attracted to Rikki (maybe he didn't like the short hair, either? )

It was just such a more realistic situation for Danny I think--it made more sense for his character. Whereas, unless his character is almost completely and fundamentally damaged, it makes little sense to pursue something with someone who treats you like crap. Maybe it just didn't feel realistic to him.

I'm not sure - I remember an interview I read somewhere about "Pay Up", about the cast's genuine sadness over Vaugier's leaving helping them (Eddie Cahill in particular) translate that over into the grief over Angell's death. And that just makes sense, because people feel sadness all the time, and most of the time the very idea of a kid being dead is sad enough to bring tons of emotion to the fore.

Vaugier leaving was a real thing, though. The kid dying wasn't in any aspect. I think it takes a lot to knock it out of the park when it comes to those really tormented, gut-wrenching storylines because it really is pretend. And Carmine does that really well.

Exactly; I don't mean to generalize, and I know for a fact that there are people attracted to (or repelled from) D/L for a score of reasons. But from what I've seen in places like Fanfiction.Net - where it's downright impossible to find good Lindsay-character fic among the masses of DL fluff - there seem to be so many fans that over-identify with her. With those fans, it's not about who Lindsay as a character is, it's about them being able to project on her. But even that strongly indicates that it's not really Danny they're tuning in to see every week on CSINY, it's the girl they overidentify with. It's sort of like the Twilight effect (the main conflict between fans of that series being Edward/Bella vs. Jacob/Bella, despite the fact that Bella herself is little more than a cipher with a book written from her POV).

Oh, Twilight is a perfect comparison because yeah, it's all about the unrealistic romance and little else.

That girl is only as good as the hot, interesting guy propping her up - but in my experience, that usually just means the guy himself is interchangeable, so long as he's hot and interesting. I'm sure those D/L fans would prefer it if NY stuck to D/L; but if the show ever did jump ship and decide to pair Lindsay with Hawkes/Flack/Adam/Marty Pino/any-completely-random-hot-interesting-guy, my guess is that a good chunk of those D/L fans would likewise jump ship with the show. Whereas how many D/L fans did we see jump ship to Danny/Rikki after "Right Next Door"?

Not sure about that, since the Lindsay-self-insertion seems so tied to Danny because so many have big, whopping crushes on him. I've seen a lot of "so and so guy should come in and hit on Lindsay and make Danny jealous!" but I think there would be an uproar if D/L was ever done for good, because I do think it's as much as about wanting Danny--or some unrealistic great boyfriend version of him--as it is about identifying with Lindsay.

I consciously decided to stay out of this particular debate for a while, mainly because we have no idea whether Carmine struggles to relay attraction (if in fact he does struggle) because of any aesthetic shortfalls and I admit to feeling more than a little uncomfortable speculating such things. But, the urge to say my piece got the better of me:lol:.

I agree--it's hard to speculate about what he feels about the storyline, though I think he's made enough comments in interviews to at least have something to discuss here, without assuming any of our speculations are anything but that--speculations.

I agree that Carmine has openly struggled with the 'punching bag' syndrome from S3 and that may have impacted his enthusiasm for how things developed at that time.

Yeah, he said as much in one of his interviews:

CSI Files: Danny was being treated pretty poorly by Lindsay there for a while!

Giovinazzo: Yeah. That's another good thing about this. It's like, as an actor [the writers] making me do certain things that instinctively I don't want to do.

CSI Files: Is there anything you did object to this season, that you didn't want to do but had to?

Giovinazzo: There was. It was that courtroom thing between Anna and I [in "Sleight Out of Hand"] that we did get into some discussion about which way we should go with that. There was one episode that kind of ended in a weird way ("The Lying Game"). I thought it was interesting because I was becoming this punching bag. No matter what she did, I'd show up. So that was kind of a bug.

I actually don't find it that much of a stretch that Danny would 'go for her'. I'm not a great believer in couples having to 'match' in that sense, but I appreciate that there's a basic societal conditioning that prompts people to seek out partners of a similar social standing and attractiveness. I don't really see Danny and Lindsay as particularly confounding that theory. In fact, both Danny and Flack seem to me to be men who put glamour relatively low down on their list of 'must haves' in a girl - they both have seemed fairly intolerant of the veneer that many women (and a fair few men) hide behind. Not that either of them would be put off by a woman who was more openly hot, as long as she had substance to her personality.

No, I agree Danny and Flack aren't looking for runway models, but Danny and Lindsay really don't seem to be at the same level of attractiveness. I could see him with girls like Aiden and Maka--Lindsay has always seemed like a step down. Which, if she had an awesome personality, wouldn't even be an issue, but when you couple her average looks with her unappealing personality, it's a head-scratcher.

Now, I do get the whole 'personality' aspect of attractiveness. Even the most beautiful people can be unattractive if they are mean, shallow, vindictive etc. I guess the issue here is whether Danny sees Lindsay that way, which clearly he doesn't - I don't even think Carmine sees Lindsay that way, mainly because I don't think it was ever intended for her to be that way (no matter how she is perceived by some). Even more to the point, if the issue we're debating is one where Carmine struggles to portray being attracted to Lindsay because of personality then I'd have to debate his views on Anna's personality (which obviously I can't because I don't know them). Now I've completely confused myself as to whether I'm talking about characters or actors - I guess that's the problem with discussing if one character's 'apparent' lack of passion for another is down to the actor just not finding them attractive enough. Dodgy territory really.

No, I agree, and I wouldn't really factor that into it, though as a viewer it's always something that made the whole storyline unrealistic. I don't think Lindsay is mean, shallow or vindictive, but she is incredibly selfish and self-centered, and whether she's meant to come across that way or not, that is how she seems. It makes Danny look more damaged by clinging to her. And maybe we're being unfair to Carmine--I think he's making some choices in how he plays Danny approaching her, especially lately. We've been talking about it a lot in the "Who's More Damaged" thread, but I think Danny's current relationship with Lindsay says more about his character's damage--and hopes of finding happiness through his child--than it does about Danny's feelings for Lindsay.

If anything, I think Carmine's achilles heel is more that he busts out his game for the angst ridden, overly emotional scenes yet occasionally falls a little flat on the everyday continuity.

Oh, I have to disagree there--I think he does a lot of nice little subtle things that give Danny energy and personality. Just little stuff, like when he bounces up and down when he's excited or nervous, or the way he cracks bad jokes with his colleagues. I think Carmine is just as good with the everyday stuff as he is with the big storylines.

Unfortunately for him, Danny's relationship with Lindsay is more everyday continuity than overly emotional imo. Danny's relationship with Rikki was angst ridden gold whereas Danny and Lindsay have only ever had the angsty undertone at best - their relationship has never been portrayed in an overly passionate sense. Of course, I could be completely way off in putting that down to the on and off nature of their relationship, and really it may all be because the actor's are seriously lacking in the chemistry dept - I don't think so though.

Yeah, there's never been any passion between Danny and Lindsay, and maybe that's part of the problem. For an actor playing a passionate character, it's got to be hard to understand what draws that character to a relationship that isn't really passionate. I mean, there's never been an ounce of torrid passion between Danny and Lindsay... not an ounce. And doesn't it feel a little out of character for a person like Danny, who is 110% passionate and emotional, to be in a relationship like that?

The bottom line is that Carmine really falls short in convincing me of D-->L. And that more than anything tells me that romantic-acting is downright difficult, because he's a fabulous actor otherwise.

I feel like that's a stretch... just because one person doesn't do something well doesn't immediately translate into that thing being difficult. And I think it might even be premature to conclude that he's bad at it, because he was fine in the scenes with Rikki. I think he might be struggling with the passionate-free romance a bit, which to be fair, goes against a lot that's true about his character.

It's not possible to say Belknap is a less-talented actress because her strength appears to be with subtle/romantic acting the way Carmine's appears to be with high-angst acting (you definitely have a point about the high-drama of Danny/Rikki).

Oh, I've got to disagree here--there's nothing subtle about Anna's acting! She's so obvious. Lindsay is supposed to be concerned--so Anna scrunches up her face and looks concerned! Lindsay is supposed to be upset, so Anna scrunches up her face and gets mad. And with the romance--which I don't think she's fabulous with by any means--it's little more than acting like you have a crush on someone, which isn't hard to do at all. Everyone's had a crush on someone at some point, so that's an obvious thing to draw on.

And with the deeper romance stuff--we haven't really seen that between Danny and Lindsay because they don't really have that deep of a connection. They don't communicate with each other and they don't trust each other, so we never see those elements on screen.

 

[JellyBelly]

The bottom line is that Carmine really falls short in convincing me of D-->L. And that more than anything tells me that romantic-acting is downright difficult, because he's a fabulous actor otherwise.

I can't really say that he falls short of convincing me that Danny is into Lindsay because I found him pretty convincing in S2 & S3. But, while I do believe that Danny loves Lindsay, there is something missing in that portrayal for me right now. I can't actually pinpoint anything in Carmine's performance and lean more towards the rush job on getting them back together. They clearly weren't supposed to be back together in S5, at least not until later on in the season, so the fact we were told they were together retrospectively left some gaps in the dynamic. The fact that Lindsay had already declared her true feelings but Danny hadn't, meant that the gaps fall on his side of the fence. I'm not sure that's about Carmine though.

No, I agree Danny and Flack aren't looking for runway models, but Danny and Lindsay really don't seem to be at the same level of attractiveness. I could see him with girls like Aiden and Maka--Lindsay has always seemed like a step down. Which, if she had an awesome personality, wouldn't even be an issue, but when you couple her average looks with her unappealing personality, it's a head-scratcher.

Maybe it's the fact that I like Lindsay that makes me scratch my head at the thought of her being a 'step down' from the likes of Aiden and Maka. If anything, while Danny had that flirty thing going on with both of them (and Stella until she slapped him down in S1) he never actually dated either of them, so I struggle in seeing Lindsay as being a step down from something he didn't have in the first place. The fact is, if you don't like Lindsay then you're not really going to see her as an attractive prospect for a character you really do like - I get that, I just don't see it that way. Each to their own and all that.

No, I agree, and I wouldn't really factor that into it, though as a viewer it's always something that made the whole storyline unrealistic. I don't think Lindsay is mean, shallow or vindictive, but she is incredibly selfish and self-centered, and whether she's meant to come across that way or not, that is how she seems.

Well, I could choose to see her that way, but I don't. Mainly because in viewing her as selfish and self-centred I'd have to look at Danny with a much more critical eye also. I think they're both guilty of being a little self absorbed at times, but whereas Lindsay's issues tend to come out in her interactions with Danny, his will often come out in interactions with other people as well as Lindsay. Hence why his stuff gets shared around a bit more whereas he gets the brunt of her stuff.

Oh, I have to disagree there--I think he does a lot of nice little subtle things that give Danny energy and personality. Just little stuff, like when he bounces up and down when he's excited or nervous, or the way he cracks bad jokes with his colleagues. I think Carmine is just as good with the everyday stuff as he is with the big storylines.

I agree with that. Maybe I was being a little harsh in my analysis, but I do find Carmine's power house emotional performances much more compelling than the everyday stuff. I guess that's a given, and maybe it's more about me and what I enjoy watching in Carmine's acting. I've just found the whole S5 thing a little weak for both Danny and Lindsay and it's not held my interest like previous seasons.

Yeah, there's never been any passion between Danny and Lindsay, and maybe that's part of the problem. For an actor playing a passionate character, it's got to be hard to understand what draws that character to a relationship that isn't really passionate. I mean, there's never been an ounce of torrid passion between Danny and Lindsay... not an ounce. And doesn't it feel a little out of character for a person like Danny, who is 110% passionate and emotional, to be in a relationship like that?

I wouldn't say there's never been any passion between them. I thought there was early on (s2/3) but that it's been dumbed down by the back and forth and then the pregnancy when they weren't even supposed to be together. Actually, it kind of makes some sense to have Danny in a relationship that isn't ruled on passion, particularly as tptb seem to have used the relationship as a means to shift Danny's gears from time to time e.g. allowing him to be the supporter rather than the supported as he is in his relationship with the likes of Mac and Flack. In actual fact, what appealed to me about the relationship back in S2 was that this wasn't something that centred around inappropriate snogging and groping in the work place, but was something that grew out of minor irritation, into friendship then into something more. It felt a little more realistic that a lot of inter-office romances on crime shows (and the like) - not that I watch enough of them to be an expert but it seemed different enough to pique my interest in the beginning.

I feel like that's a stretch... just because one person doesn't do something well doesn't immediately translate into that thing being difficult. And I think it might even be premature to conclude that he's bad at it, because he was fine in the scenes with Rikki. I think he might be struggling with the passionate-free romance a bit, which to be fair, goes against a lot that's true about his character.

I don't see it as difficult for him, or that he's bad at it. And I think it's difficult to compare with the Rikki scenes because to me those were primarily about passion and not romance, there was nothing romantic about it, it's was pure grit. The thing with Lindsay is romance but with very little grit.

I think I've gone off topic, or at least veered slightly off course.

 

[Top41]

I can't really say that he falls short of convincing me that Danny is into Lindsay because I found him pretty convincing in S2 & S3. But, while I do believe that Danny loves Lindsay, there is something missing in that portrayal for me right now. I can't actually pinpoint anything in Carmine's performance and lean more towards the rush job on getting them back together. They clearly weren't supposed to be back together in S5, at least not until later on in the season, so the fact we were told they were together retrospectively left some gaps in the dynamic. The fact that Lindsay had already declared her true feelings but Danny hadn't, meant that the gaps fall on his side of the fence. I'm not sure that's about Carmine though.

Not necessarily, no, since the scripts clearly never called on him to say it--even after she'd said it twice. But I do think it's more than that--Danny's never seemed quite excited about her. There's no passion or light in his eyes when he talks about her. Maya and I are having a great conversation about that over in the "Damage" thread, actually.

Maybe it's the fact that I like Lindsay that makes me scratch my head at the thought of her being a 'step down' from the likes of Aiden and Maka. If anything, while Danny had that flirty thing going on with both of them (and Stella until she slapped him down in S1) he never actually dated either of them, so I struggle in seeing Lindsay as being a step down from something he didn't have in the first place. The fact is, if you don't like Lindsay then you're not really going to see her as an attractive prospect for a character you really do like - I get that, I just don't see it that way. Each to their own and all that.

He wasn't with either Aiden or Maka, no, but I'd see either of them as more likely prospects for Danny in the romance department. I think Lindsay is much more plain than either, and while Danny might not be looking for glamor, I'd think he'd be looking for someone that he had a lot of sexual chemistry with and I just don't see that with Lindsay. Even when he was pursuing her in season three, it was her making all the moves on him, and he kind of went along with it. She pulled him in for a kiss, she made the move on him at his apartment.

Well, I could choose to see her that way, but I don't. Mainly because in viewing her as selfish and self-centred I'd have to look at Danny with a much more critical eye also. I think they're both guilty of being a little self absorbed at times, but whereas Lindsay's issues tend to come out in her interactions with Danny, his will often come out in interactions with other people as well as Lindsay. Hence why his stuff gets shared around a bit more whereas he gets the brunt of her stuff.

Danny can definitely be selfish, yes, but at the same time he can be incredibly thoughtful and caring. For the most part, that's not true of Lindsay. There are times when Danny is a complete brat, or acts incredibly immature or irresponsible (I'm thinking "The Dove Commission" and "The Party's Over"), but those times are offset by the good things he does. That's not quite the case with Lindsay. She's done a few nice things for Danny, but she's got a personal interest in Danny--and a lot of times she's treated him pretty badly.

I agree with that. Maybe I was being a little harsh in my analysis, but I do find Carmine's power house emotional performances much more compelling than the everyday stuff. I guess that's a given, and maybe it's more about me and what I enjoy watching in Carmine's acting. I've just found the whole S5 thing a little weak for both Danny and Lindsay and it's not held my interest like previous seasons.

The baby storyline and especially the shotgun wedding probably weren't the best ways to go for the characters, though I do think fatherhood has brought out an interesting side of Danny, and kind of opened up his insecurities and need in a novel way.

I wouldn't say there's never been any passion between them. I thought there was early on (s2/3) but that it's been dumbed down by the back and forth and then the pregnancy when they weren't even supposed to be together.

I didn't see any passion in season two or three. Interest, yeah, but not passion. I never felt like they wanted to rip each other's clothes off. And while everything doesn't have to be torrid and steamy, there should be evident sexual attraction there. I've never gotten that from them, aside from Lindsay coming on to Danny those two times, I guess, but he seemed so passive and 'go with the flow' in those scenes.

Actually, it kind of makes some sense to have Danny in a relationship that isn't ruled on passion, particularly as tptb seem to have used the relationship as a means to shift Danny's gears from time to time e.g. allowing him to be the supporter rather than the supported as he is in his relationship with the likes of Mac and Flack. In actual fact, what appealed to me about the relationship back in S2 was that this wasn't something that centred around inappropriate snogging and groping in the work place, but was something that grew out of minor irritation, into friendship then into something more. It felt a little more realistic that a lot of inter-office romances on crime shows (and the like) - not that I watch enough of them to be an expert but it seemed different enough to pique my interest in the beginning.

Different, yes--and I can see the appeal of it in season two. There was something kind of interesting about her crush drawing his attention and awakening an interest in him. But season three really drove it into unrealistic and unappealing territory, IMO--it made her look like a bitch and him look like a wimp with major self-esteem issues.

I don't see it as difficult for him, or that he's bad at it. And I think it's difficult to compare with the Rikki scenes because to me those were primarily about passion and not romance, there was nothing romantic about it, it's was pure grit. The thing with Lindsay is romance but with very little grit.

That might be what irks me about it, in the same way straight up romance novels irk me--it's not realistic. Men don't want to sit around talking about relationships all the time. Men don't think about relationships all the time. Men (who are healthy at least) don't chase after girls who keep pushing them away and stand them up for dates. It's the whole unreality of it all, the soap opera fantasy aspect of it that here's this 'Plain Jane girl from Montana who gets the hot guy and then pushes him away because of her dark and troubled past but he's there for her anyway' that grates. If we're supposed to see it through the lens of Danny's damage, that's one thing, but if not, then it just feels totally unrealistic and forced.

 

[Elwood21]

...I luvs Big Red Buttons :lol:

And I hafta admit, it's been tricky in the volume of the back and forth here to discern exactly what the topic is

There's been little of late that's caught my interest, but this conversation is one that I've been following. And there was a statement or implication that's had me thinking and looking at things in a wider context, over a couple of days, mostly thinking and not commenting.

The gist of it was that playing a romance is harder than other aspects of acting. The statement is one I kinda disagree with. Next, the possible implication that Carmine and Anna and DL merit some sort of special credit for participating in the depiction of a Romance above others who aren't, was probably the burr under my saddle here prompting me to jump in. Feels kinda like another attempt to put Lindsay and DL on a pedestal of some sort. Last, another reason this has had me thinking is because Anna as an actor is something that comes up quite often in this thread.

I'm not an expert on acting either but I've got my views too :lol: I think that all characters operate under the banner of what they believe in. A quote I like is "an actor's job is to tell the truth under imaginary circumstances." I might venture to offer that Acting is about intent, about being in the moment, about having done enough prep and work to be able to live in a character's skin to the point where you can be spontaneous. It's about finding a willingness and a freedom and a stamina in tapping into an emotional vein within a technical process. In the short period of time between action and cut, that everyone will hafta repeat over and over again, about being willing to set all that aside, set all the prep work aside to live it and just go for it in the moment. It takes an army to set up and no one goes home until you do. I think actors probably must relish that. That's their time to do what they do. Sometimes I think that some of the most powerful moments have no words at all.

I think it's gotta be more interesting for actors to to play foibles and flaws and ambiguities, cos there's lots to grab onto and explore in those cases. I've gotta bet there's a part of Carmine that's excited by the challenge of a new physicality informing his character due being injured.

"Romance is harder than anything else?" It probably does vary from actor to actor, and all that. But as a blanket statement, it's really one I have a hard time agreeing with, and the related subsequent discussion is really what has been percolating internally until I couldn't help interrupting y'all .

What's hard to do believably and well? Comedy is hard. Acting for special f/x is hard. Humanizing a villain is hard. Romance is your focus here because of DL, right? Understandable. But I don't think you can segregate "romance" from other emotional veins at all. It's often about an inner conflict, maybe about daring to trust, examining faith, the growth or loss of it, vulnerability, maybe it's about feeling betrayed after an emotional investment in someone or in yourself. Those emotions aren't solely confined to the realm of a romantic relationship but can relate to relationships in general. Risks are great and feelings intense in a romantic relationship, in part because of the choices it requires from you, and I think that's what a lot of people are interested in when seeing it depicted onscreen. Other scenarios can be equally demanding of a person in different ways. I most definitely don't think you can say that comedy isn't about or doesn't often derive from pain or personal risk. I don't think you can say that other types of relationships and stories within a drama wouldn't require an actor to be vulnerable and exposed.

With Lindsay, and also with DL, there is always this duality between what I think the intent is thru the writing and what actually seems to come across. I have to say also that I think Danny really has suffered as a character because of the DL relationship. He has become more muddled and less delineated, less consistent, and it's something that I can't wholly think is a deliberate 'evolution.' I think it's fallout.

I am often left with the impression of not understanding why Danny and Lindsay are together, and that Carmine and Anna don't either, why the characters make the choices they do with regards to each other. I dunno if that's writing, or direction, or if there's stuff edited out that mighta colored thing differently or if Anna and Carmine just haven't consistently sussed it. All I can say is that what results for me is a) I don't really believe the pairing, b) I don't feel for them, c) I think their relationship comes across as each character independently pursuing some sort of inner compulsion that's fed by the other, and is not a love affair that derives from an undeniable personal connection, chemistry, resonance and trust, and I do not think that complexity was deliberate. I think we as viewers are left to fill in just as much on their behalf. I don't think Danny and Lindsay are about romance or a love story any more than I thought Danny and Rikki were. The problem is, I think Danny and Lindsay were supposed to be about romance and a love story, I think they were intended to be the prototypical office romance, and have come to be treated as if they were always meant to be this Once Inna Lifetime Twu Wuv. A definite soap opera and a definite turn off, and have been for the past three seasons.

I think DL relies heavily on (I might say coasts on) a fandom fascination with the Idea of Romance, that exploration, idealizing it. I definitely think that Lindsay benefits as a character because of this. I never viewed Angell at all in the same way. She did stand on her own, and the pairing with Flack felt like 1+1=3 because each existed outside of FA.

The idea of Danny and Lindsay together was never interesting to me. I never thought they had chemistry worth exploring or using. The romance really felt an imposition on the show. I would say that Flack and Angell were far more believable with regards to chemistry. A character that I think benefited from a romance on the show was Mac. He did change over the course of that season, and has had an overall arc traceable from S1 to where he is now. We'll see if Flack is changed by what he's undergone or if he ultimately becomes even more who and what he is already. Btw, there's been references to 'Arcs' too.

I think that an arc is a change or changes that a character undergoes in the course of a story. I'd guess the focus and format of plays and film make that easier than television, at least as far as episodic procedurals goes, but I think there's room for it. I also don't think that characters necessarily hafta have huge arcs to be believable or moving characters. A character can have an exploration and not ultimately change. It doesn't make them more or less valid or valuable, or necessarily even more complex. I think that it really depends on what the story is that's being told and their involvement within it.

There's also been mention here of character moments. I think that perhaps Vegas of the three has done arcs and character moments most consistently well. I think NY suffers for the continuity that really seems key for extended arcs. But I do think NY does character moments very very well. One way to look at the show is by what characters have done with the time given to them, no matter how much or how little that's been. I think that Adam and Sid both were so memorable within the vignettes written for them and how they were brought to life by AJ and Robert that it parlayed both into being regular characters, even if they were to fill a certain niche within the show. They won out after a substantial roll-over of characters. I think even recurring characters like Gerrard, Sinclair, and Angell, each became fleshed out thru a collection of small moments, and that they were portrayed, collectively within the body of their time on the show, with greater nuance and complexity than Anna has managed with Lindsay's devoted storylines and smaller moments combined in the four seasons she's been on the show. My opinion. Some obviously like Lindsay, champion her, find her convincing and empathetic and all. I just don't feel it. AB's done less with more where others just seem to have done far more with less.

Moments I believe? Mac in a hospital describing to Hawkes, answering a question no less and opening up, about how his father suffered a vicious bout with cancer and the fact that he asked for a mercy killing from his son. Flack in the hospital having to find some way to contain himself while still having to open the door enough to tell Danny that Angell didn't make it. Mac talking of Claire's breath in a beach ball that he just couldn't bear to get rid of as he did most everything else. Danny seeing Reuben in autopsy. Sid speaking of taking Marty Pino under his wing, and subsequently realizing what he'd become. Hawkes telling Stella what happened to Kara, in part because of the interaction between them as much as the subject matter being discussed, Mac watching vid of the camp survivor describing his ordeal and a man who helped him and realizing it was his father, Adam uttering that his father was a bully, those are all moving and believable moments.

There's not one I can recall just off the top of my head where Lindsay's been concerned, nothing that's stayed with me in the same way. And I don't believe that the scenes I mentioned above were somehow easier or less challenging than Danny and Lindsay's proposal scene, or the monologue of Doom, or any other of their moments of interaction. It's still emotion and intent. You are seriously not gonna convince me that DL somehow deserve credit and consideration over and above because romance is 'hard to do.'

Back to the Reuben/Rikki storyline for a moment. A reason Carmine and Danny felt compelling to me in early days was because there was a sense that you didn't know what Danny was gonna do, what his penchant for impetuosity was gonna lead him to do, to disregard in pursuing. He was unpredicable. Part of the reason that he seems to have waned for me is that sense of unpredictability is no longer present. And I don't wholly ascribe that to growth and maturity. It's more than that. It's a spontanaeity lacking, it all really does feel a great deal more scripted, dipping into memories of that rashness rather than living in the moment of who he is. The Blu Flu strike was an example of that. I no longer really know who he is. The Reuben story was great for him because he was on the edge again. The Danny/Rikki element of it worked in part because it felt like there were two people flying by the seat of their pants just trying to deal with one minute at a time, knowing damn well what it was, disregarding the future to forget the past.

In four years we've had a roll-over of recurring characters produce two great new regulars where the new S2 regular has really receded except for the heavily ladled on DL pregnancy storyline of S5, something that wasn't edgy or new or organic or even engaging to watch. I'm tired of giving Lindsay chances, though I try to watch with an open mind. But I don't care. I do not care. I'm not really interested in Danny angst, I'm definitely not interested in Lindsay dealing. I'm hoping that Flack's aftermath isn't swept under the rug like last season's news while Danny and Lindsay take centre stage and usurp even more screentime in S6 than they did in S5.

I'm unimpressed thus far with the spoilers we've gotten for the show, new character included. I really want good things to come for the show this year. I'm filled more with a sardonic resolve than hope.

Sorry for the interruption and the extended ramble on things you've probably long been done with. :lol:

 

[Maya316]

Neither Mac nor Stella would have pressed that big red button. Nor reacted the same at the end (or throughout). I think "Trapped" was such a great episode because it played on Danny's unique traits as a character--it was a story born of character, rather than a character reacting to a story.

Lol, true :lol: I don't think it would be as great were it Mac or Stella, but I do think it would've been done with either of them, were Danny unavailable for some reason.

But she also was written to be driven and haunted. Anna never brought any of that subtlety in. It was all big outbursts and sullenness, which I think detracted from the gradations we were supposed to see in her character. She failed at making Lindsay warm and likable... and then she also didn't convey that Lindsay wasn't just shrill and brittle, that there was something behind it. Save for "Stealing Home"--that obsession that she showed when pursuing the killer and his motive really was conveyed well, and made her so much more interesting to me--but sadly, that was never really seen again.

I disagree that she was written to be haunted from the very first - that only came later in S2, the point at which they finally seemed to decide to add even an ounce of realism to Lindsay's character. And I'm still half-conviced they did that only because they'd picked up on the element Belknap added to her character. If we picture every single one of Lindsay's lines up to "All Access" played by a warmer, open actress, there is absolutely no way to tell that Lindsay is supposed to be affected at all by her bloody past. None. The closest is possibly her "I've seen worse scenes than that before" line from Manhattan Manhunt, and even that seems like it was originally just written as Lindsay being defensive, rather than haunted (there were more dead kids shot by Darius than there were in Lindsay's diner memory). But Lindsay struck me as damaged from...not the first episode I saw her in, but after three or four I noticed the stiff aloofness to her cheerfulness, which I didn't notice at first because I was just too annoyed by the cheerfulness. It reminded me a little of Sara Sidle's brittleness, and of course there are reasons for Sara's. Belknap is the one who added any hint of damage to Lindsay's character.

I doubt it was unscripted, in part because her acting in that episode felt so obvious. I felt the script at every point in the episode with her--that was the first time I really put my finger on what bothered me about her acting. I don't mind aloof characters, but I like consistency--a character can't be bubbly and light-hearted one episode and aloof the next. There was no character consistency there, which made it hard to warm to or even get a handle on her as a character in the second season.

Exactly - Lindsay was basically written to be cheerful until late S2; it was only then that her touchiness and aloofness seemed to actually become scripted. And of course, that creates havoc in terms of consistency. But I saw hints of her stiffness even through her peppiness in "Cool Hunter", once I got around to watching it again (I really hated her the first time I saw her in it). And I really think her aloofness came across in episodes far earlier than "All Access", just not so much in script.

It was indeed scripted, and felt totally unnatural, IMO--why would Hawkes pick up Danny's nickname for her three seasons later, after Danny himself had stopped using it? It was one of the endless "she's from Montana"/DL reminders that keep coming up because there's not much else to her character.

Well, that's pretty much what made it feel like it wasn't scripted - there'd be no reason for the writers to suddenly get Hawkes to pick up on Danny's un-used nickname, but Hawkes is certainly the only other character close enough to Lindsay to use it. I guess it's possible that it was scripted - although being fair, Mac has a ton of stuff to his character, and it doesn't stop them from reminding us in almost every 5th episode that he used to be a Marine. But if it was, the writers might well have been picking up on that unscripted warmth I see between Hawkes and Lindsay, because script-wise, there's never been much to heavily indicate that they are close outside of being coworkers.

Maybe, though her character was brought in with that storyline, so it was her job to work it into her performance all the way through, and reconcile it. It's Carmine's job to sell Danny's feelings, too, but I think doing an about face for an established character is a little harder.

I'm iffy on Lindsay's character having been brought in with the S3 storyline. They advertised her as having a "bloody secret" when she was being auditioned, but I don't think they'd actually fleshed out what that bloody secret was, any more than they seem to have fleshed out what Kaye Sullivan's "dark secret" is. At best, they might've defined Lindsay's secret toward the end of S2, and told Belknap about it - and "Stealing Home" came off well. But I don't think they'd ever planned to have her confront her secret, let alone told Belknap that; until Anna told them she was pregnant and would need maternity leave. S3 was an about-face for Lindsay too, really. Whatever half-realistic drive enabled her to become a cop despite her past, it should've (realistically) been ripped away by having to directly confront that past. Breakdowns like the one she should've gone through leave people in the hospital. It's impossible to convincingly act a character who can not only have that breakdown and still be functional, but can also still work as a cop. It would be hard to even try.

It was just such a more realistic situation for Danny I think--it made more sense for his character. Whereas, unless his character is almost completely and fundamentally damaged, it makes little sense to pursue something with someone who treats you like crap. Maybe it just didn't feel realistic to him.

Rikki/Danny (the one scene we saw of it, anyway), only made sense because of the damage in Danny's character. I can't imagine either Hawkes, or Flack, or even Mac deciding to use sex to make up for their guilt, no matter how utterly destroyed they might've felt had they been the ones to know Ruben. But yeah, at least Carmine knew the trigger for what Danny felt he owed Rikki.

Vaugier leaving was a real thing, though. The kid dying wasn't in any aspect. I think it takes a lot to knock it out of the park when it comes to those really tormented, gut-wrenching storylines because it really is pretend. And Carmine does that really well

I didn't mean to say it doesn't take a whole lot of talent to act out those tormented scenes; it does, and I think that's the reason Danny usually gets a lot of angsty storylines. Even his half of the baby storyline was mostly angst. Carmine's strength is with the gut-wrenching scenes, and the writers recognize that and give them to him - but I don't necessarily think that makes him more talented than someone whose strength lies in different areas. If we add all the D/L mini-stories to Lindsay's list, then her storyline collection starts to skyrocket above those of the other secondary characters; almost comes even with Danny's non-D/L-related storylines, actually. It tells me the writers are likewise responding to a strength of Belknap's. Otherwise, especially given Carmine's achilles' heel, they'd probably leave D/L much more in the background than they do now. Like they did with Grissom/Sara. They certainly don't need the extra reason to take storylines away from the other characters.

I feel like that's a stretch... just because one person doesn't do something well doesn't immediately translate into that thing being difficult. And I think it might even be premature to conclude that he's bad at it, because he was fine in the scenes with Rikki. I think he might be struggling with the passionate-free romance a bit, which to be fair, goes against a lot that's true about his character.

It's not just Carmine, though. There's a reason I really have a problem with romance in my crime or procedural dramas - I rarely see it done that well in them. Especially when the romances are scripted; and that's really why I think it might take a different set of skills to do romantic-acting. I don't think scripted romances should so obviously look like the writers are forcing the issue. Scripted romances are fine and can have plenty of chemistry: Derek/Meredith from Grey's Anatomy was scripted from the very first. I don't see the "meant-to-be" chemistry that others see between them, but I'm at least able to believe that they feel something romantic for each other. Ross/Rachel was scripted from the first, but they convinced me of it. When carried off by actors who clearly have the skills to make it work, scripted romance is great. It also seems to belong in certain shows that highlight romance. In CSI: Miami - I know you've said that Eric/Calleigh progressed naturally, but I watched "Sink or Swim" last night. If I hadn't been told beforehand that the kiss at the end was coming, it would've come completely out of left field for me. There was nothing that left me feeling that the two characters were romantically interested in each other. I don't normally watch Miami, so I have no idea what Adam or Emily Procter are like in romantic scenes with other actors - but from what I have seen, they are both great actors otherwise. I just think romantic acting is hard in general.

Oh, I've got to disagree here--there's nothing subtle about Anna's acting! She's so obvious. Lindsay is supposed to be concerned--so Anna scrunches up her face and looks concerned! Lindsay is supposed to be upset, so Anna scrunches up her face and gets mad. And with the romance--which I don't think she's fabulous with by any means--it's little more than acting like you have a crush on someone, which isn't hard to do at all. Everyone's had a crush on someone at some point, so that's an obvious thing to draw on.

"Subtle acting" might've been the wrong term - what I like about Belknap's acting is that I can usually tell what Lindsay is feeling right off the bat, even if it's never explicitly said (and, I've never really noticed the face-scrunch thing . I notice the way her voice gives certain inflections to different lines - like the almost-bitter "She's only 22 years old" one from Live or Let Die, and the way she couldn't forget the vic; that made me think Lindsay was haunted).

I meant more that Belknap does seem to do better with the subtler storylines; the drama at the end of the Ruben arc, for example. And "Stealing Home" was a comparatively subtle one, given Lindsay's past. Had they left it at that, it might almost be believable that Lindsay could be a cop after going through what she did. It's one thing for long-past trauma to affect your everyday interactions and behaviour - it's another, and far less subtle thing to be directly confronted by that trauma, like Lindsay was in S3. That's just over the top. As for the romantic-acting, I wouldn't say she's fabulous but she certainly pulls it off more convincingly than I usually see done in crime dramas. If it were as simple as drawing from an old crush, again, I think Carmine could easily do it. I think others could easily do it, too.

And with the deeper romance stuff--we haven't really seen that between Danny and Lindsay because they don't really have that deep of a connection. They don't communicate with each other and they don't trust each other, so we never see those elements on screen.

This actually ties in with what you said about Carmine, Danny, Rikki, and passionate relationships (vs. non-passionate ones). There have been two times that I think Carmine has really pulled off the romance stuff - the Danny/Rikki scene in his apartment in RND, and the Danny/Lindsay "pool table" scene (the morning one, I mean) in Snow Day. [If the Danny/Rikki scene at the end of Personal Foul was supposed to be a romantic one, I really didn't see it on Carmine/Danny's side.] And I don't think it's a coincidence that they were both basically bedroom-scenes. I think the passionate angle helps, but I'm not sure it's any more than a crutch, really. I'm sure D/L's lack of connection doesn't help matters, but the end of "The Triangle" was the closest they'd ever come to having honest conversation, and I still didn't see any attraction there on his side. I'm not sure things would've been different had the writers gone with Danny/Rikki.

 

[Maya316]

I can't really say that he falls short of convincing me that Danny is into Lindsay because I found him pretty convincing in S2 & S3. But, while I do believe that Danny loves Lindsay, there is something missing in that portrayal for me right now. I can't actually pinpoint anything in Carmine's performance and lean more towards the rush job on getting them back together. They clearly weren't supposed to be back together in S5, at least not until later on in the season, so the fact we were told they were together retrospectively left some gaps in the dynamic. The fact that Lindsay had already declared her true feelings but Danny hadn't, meant that the gaps fall on his side of the fence. I'm not sure that's about Carmine though.

The thing is, for me Carmine's D/L lines have sounded at least as scripted as any of Lindsay's S3 lines. Even the "Montana" thing - I've heard online before that he apparently came up with the nickname himself, but I would never have guessed that from the way he says it. It never comes naturally, just really awkwardly. I have considered that the "lack" in his performance especially in S4/S5 was intentional on his side, but that lack was way more glaring in S2, I thought.

I wouldn't say there's never been any passion between them. I thought there was early on (s2/3) but that it's been dumbed down by the back and forth and then the pregnancy when they weren't even supposed to be together. Actually, it kind of makes some sense to have Danny in a relationship that isn't ruled on passion, particularly as tptb seem to have used the relationship as a means to shift Danny's gears from time to time e.g. allowing him to be the supporter rather than the supported as he is in his relationship with the likes of Mac and Flack. In actual fact, what appealed to me about the relationship back in S2 was that this wasn't something that centred around inappropriate snogging and groping in the work place, but was something that grew out of minor irritation, into friendship then into something more. It felt a little more realistic that a lot of inter-office romances on crime shows (and the like) - not that I watch enough of them to be an expert but it seemed different enough to pique my interest in the beginning.

I'll definitely agree I saw friendship between them in S2, and an L-->D crush, but I don't know if I'd call it passion...not on his side, anyway, and I think even Lindsay wasn't looking for more beyond a casual flirtation, or even a fling. The bantering seemed to be a huge part of their friendship - still is, in fact, because that's basically the only thing that holds them together even now in their relationship. Without it, I think they'd...well, not hate each other, but I doubt they'd be that comfortable around each other for long.

I don't see it as difficult for him, or that he's bad at it. And I think it's difficult to compare with the Rikki scenes because to me those were primarily about passion and not romance, there was nothing romantic about it, it's was pure grit. The thing with Lindsay is romance but with very little grit.

I really agree with this - I think a lot of Carmine's effectiveness in his strongest romantic scenes has to do with how centric they are on passion, rather than romance. I saw something interesting between Rikki/Danny too, in Right Next Door, but it was gone again by Personal Foul.

...I luvs Big Red Buttons :lol:

And I hafta admit, it's been tricky in the volume of the back and forth here to discern exactly what the topic is

See, I would've pushed the button. :lol: I don't think Stella or Mac would, but I can totally believe the writers would've had one of them just "happen" to fall on the button or something...that usually tends to be the way they get into a lot of their situations.

The gist of it was that playing a romance is harder than other aspects of acting. The statement is one I kinda disagree with. Next, the possible implication that Carmine and Anna and DL merit some sort of special credit for participating in the depiction of a Romance above others who aren't, was probably the burr under my saddle here prompting me to jump in. Feels kinda like another attempt to put Lindsay and DL on a pedestal of some sort. Last, another reason this has had me thinking is because Anna as an actor is something that comes up quite often in this thread.

This is mostly correct, although for the sake of clarity, I really didn't mean to imply that either Carmine or Anna (and certainly not DL) merit special credit among others on the show. The topic came up because we were discussing why Anna hadn't been given many significant character storylines outside of DL for some time now - if it was because the producers didn't want to give her anything too difficult to do. I feel that it would be at least as difficut to act out a romantic storyline as it would be to act a solo character arc. If I were the actress, personally, I would find it more difficult than doing a solo character arc, but I admit that's just me. I tend to be a bit on the reserved side even in relationships where I'm fairly sure the guy likes me too. I couldn't imagine trying to act out a relationship with a costar, cameras watching, and trying to make it look natural.

What's hard to do believably and well? Comedy is hard. Acting for special f/x is hard. Humanizing a villain is hard. Romance is your focus here because of DL, right? Understandable. But I don't think you can segregate "romance" from other emotional veins at all. It's often about an inner conflict, maybe about daring to trust, examining faith, the growth or loss of it, vulnerability, maybe it's about feeling betrayed after an emotional investment in someone or in yourself. Those emotions aren't solely confined to the realm of a romantic relationship but can relate to relationships in general. Risks are great and feelings intense in a romantic relationship, in part because of the choices it requires from you, and I think that's what a lot of people are interested in when seeing it depicted onscreen. Other scenarios can be equally demanding of a person in different ways. I most definitely don't think you can say that comedy isn't about or doesn't often derive from pain or personal risk. I don't think you can say that other types of relationships and stories within a drama wouldn't require an actor to be vulnerable and exposed.

That's definitely true, all those are examples of hard acting, because they all demand the actor to be vulnerable in order to be convincing; and in public, too. I guess I get stuck on the romance because for the CSI shows anyway, it seems like "the odd one out", so to speak. You expect to see comedy on CSI shows, and a lot of it is the delivery of the actors' lines. You expect to see action, even grief, and definitely humanization of the characters. But romance as really-long-term storylines between the characters, has (rightly) for the most part been left out of the CSI shows until about four years ago; and is often (again rightly, imo) viewed as nothing more than a marketing gimmick to target a younger audience, lure them away from shows like Grey's Anatomy. It's not really an organic part of the show, like it is on Grey's. That doesn't make it any less exposing for the actors who have to act the part; but I do think it's why some might consider Anna as getting the "easy", DL-related storylines that don't really challenge her as an actress. D and L may just have to kiss and make goo-goo eyes at each other for the fans to squeal and find it convincing - that doesn't mean it suddenly requires less vulnerability or effort to get that kiss or those goo-goo eyes right, and as we've seen sometimes it doesn't come across convincingly at all.

With Lindsay, and also with DL, there is always this duality between what I think the intent is thru the writing and what actually seems to come across. I have to say also that I think Danny really has suffered as a character because of the DL relationship. He has become more muddled and less delineated, less consistent, and it's something that I can't wholly think is a deliberate 'evolution.' I think it's fallout.

....

I think DL relies heavily on (I might say coasts on) a fandom fascination with the Idea of Romance, that exploration, idealizing it. I definitely think that Lindsay benefits as a character because of this. Yes, hello Mary Sue. But I didn't view Angell at all in the same way. She did stand on her own, and the pairing with Flack felt like 1+1=3 because each existed outside of FA.

I certainly agree that neither Carmine nor Anna appear to understand why the hell Danny and Lindsay are together at all, let alone after all this time. But I can't agree that Danny is the only character to have suffered from DL, whereas Lindsay has benefitted. I didn't start watching CSI:NY in serial formation (episode after episode) until Season 4 - before then, all I caught were isolated, out of order episodes. And Lindsay stood out to me as a character long before I realized she and Danny were supposed to have this very twisted, ridiculously soap-operatic storyline. Danny and Lindsay didn't even interact in half the episodes I would catch her in - I became interested in her because I was curious about this character that everyone seemed to care a lot about, but who held all her coworkers at bay behind this wall of hers. She seemed to have a story. She seemed to have trouble getting her feelings across, but it was like she was trying to learn. I did notice that she seemed to be closer friends with Danny than with anyone else, but I thought that was because of who Danny was - utterly emotional, gets-under-your-skin-and-doesn't-leave - it just seemed to make sense that he'd be the only one who could push past Lindsay's wall. I really didn't realize it was supposed to be more than friendship until I saw "Snow Day" (which I watched before seeing "Sleight Out of Hand", or even "Love Run Cold") - I literally thought D and L had just had a one-night-stand, and even then it seemed like a bad idea. I know that series-wise, DL has been set up from the beginning, but up to S5, it's actually very hard to tell that they're supposed to be a pair unless you've watched all the episodes in order.

To me, she certainly stood out far more than Angell (who is definitely a Mary Sue, and even more of one than Lindsay is - because at least Lindsay has flaws, even if we're not always supposed to see them as flaws). I will say that they didn't bring Angell in solely for the sake of pairing her with Flack, like they did with Lindsay; but she also didn't have much of any significance to say untilthey started pairing her with Flack.

The idea of Danny and Lindsay together was never interesting to me. In S2 I was still getting to know the characters, and if they'd gotten together then I think the show would have lost me right there. I never thought they had chemistry worth exploring or using. Romance as an exploration as a part of the show felt imposed on it by using this pairing. It certainly did not feel an organic evolution. I would say that Flack and Angell were far more believable with regards to chemistry. The character I think benefited from a romance on the show was Mac. He did change over the course of that season, and has had an overall arc traceable from S1 to where he is now. We'll see if Flack is changed by what he's undergone or if he ultimately becomes even more who and what he is already. Btw, there's been references to 'Arcs' too, that I also wanna touch on.

Neither D/L or F/A have ever held interest for me, although I will say F/A was a tad easier to stomach ... in part because it wasn't shoved in my face every two seconds, and in another part because they weren't as much of a cliche. I feel it also helped that they weren't scripted, although like I've said, I don't think in most romance-appropriate shows, it's the scripting that hurts a TV relationship. I couldn't stand Mac/Peyton either, really, but I agree Mac has benefitted from it. (And yeah, I do see what you're saying about character-arcs - Mac and Stella seem to be the only one who has actually had one, although I really feel that Lindsay's moments, the ones not consumed by DL, have also contributed to an arc that's slowly changing her approach to people over the seasons.)

Moments I believe? Mac in a hospital describing to Hawkes, answering a question no less and opening up, about how his father suffered a vicious bout with cancer and the fact that he asked for a mercy killing from his son. Flack in the hospital having to find some way to contain himself while still having to open the door enough to tell Danny that Angell didn't make it. Mac talking of Claire's breath in a beach ball that he just couldn't bear to get rid of as he did most everything else. Danny seeing Reuben in autopsy. Sid speaking of taking Marty Pino under his wing, and subsequently realizing what he'd become. Hawkes telling Stella what happened to Kara, Adam uttering that his father was a bully, those are all moving and believable moments.

There's not one I can recall just off the top of my head where Lindsay's concerned, nothing that's stayed with me in the same way. As for DL, I don't buy 'em. And I don't believe that the scenes I mentioned above were somehow easier or less challenging than Danny and Lindsay's proposal scene, or the monologue of Doom, or any other of their moments of interaction. It's still emotion and intent. You are seriously not gonna convince me that DL somehow deserve credit and consideration over and above because romance is 'hard to do.'

Why wouldn't Lindsay's "I need to know why" moment at the end of Stealing Home (with the prisoner) count as a character moment? It was clearly emotionally important to her and clearly personal even then, even if she (fittingly) didn't share it with any of her coworkers. And I suppose I agree about the challenging aspect of those emotional scenes, that it would take a lot to make them convincing. But I'm seriously not convinced that Lindsay's monologue in Right Next Door, or the pool-table moment in Snow Day is somehow less difficult than those emotional scenes, either. It's emotion and intent all the same.


If I double posted, I'm really sorry!