Law & Order: Criminal Intent - Vanishing Act (Season Six)

One of the interesting things about The X-Files is that you could tell when David Duchovny wasn't particularly interested in the episode, mainly because he gave a very bored performance. Vincent D'Onofrio is not quite so bad as Duchovny, but quite frankly it showed this week that he was excited by the script. And, indeed, everything seemed to be amped up just a little by what was a unique and different investigation. A magician doing a stunt where he stays buried for almost a month almost dies on screen, is dug up but to the surprise of everyone he is not in the box. Instead he turns up dead in the cabinet-of-knives belonging to his mentor. Who is taken in for questioning. And then disappears. Weirded out?

The "And Special Guest Star" this week was Christopher Lloyd and despite the fact he is looking extremely old (although he was playing an old drunk) it's so great to see Lloyd back in something. He gives a brilliant performance as the mentor who appears to be framed for murder, and he has some wonderful moments, particularly when, desperate to prove the existance of an assistant, he reveals he was watching her with a teddy bear-cam because "old men have needs too".

But in this episode, Goren got the chance to show that he knew some basic magic. And D'Onfrio is clearly having the time of his life. Thanks to some dodgy swapping of episodes, we see Goren with a beard again this week, and again mention of his "betrayal" of Eames comes up, but this is clearly forgiven and forgotten as Kathryn Erbe allows Eames to be postively delighted by Goren's magical expertise. Indeed Erbe and D'Onofrio are having so much fun there are moments when you temporarily forget that they are investigating a murder.

Except that Goren gets some great Goren moments. He gets his psychological advantage over the killer, getting a confession out of him without actually having any evidence, but having solved the case beforehand. He works out the trick and finds the tunnel. The two detectives get to go following tunnels and tracks. It's just such a great opportunity to see them actually doing something that they are enjoying doing.

A brilliant episode of Criminal Intent.

"A+"