Thankful for ... Law & Order

That's right, I'm thankful for a television show. But listen to my reasoning ...

There is some terrible stuff going on in the world today. Every time I turn on the news, it's frustrating and terrifying and disheartening. It's hard for me to believe that people who can, say, stand by and watch a 15-year-old girl get raped exist in the world.

What's worse is that sometimes our justice system seems bound and gagged by its own rules. The bad guys don't always get punished; and the good guys often lose.

But not on Law & Order. I watch the SVU brand (oh, that Det. Stabler!), and yesterday I caught a marathon, including a couple of my favorite episodes. "Slaves" (the girl in the box one) and the one where Det. Munch cries.

The wonderful thing about settling down for a formula drama like L&O:SVU is that all the frustrations I feel watching the evening news are soothed. The bad guys ALWAYS get caught. The good guys ALWAYS triumph. Everything (except for the episode where the college student had the affair with her art instructor) is black-and-white. The actors even take time to patiently explain the background of the episode's issue each week.

It may not be real, but it sure does help me survive the evening news sometimes!

Thanks, Dick Wolf!