Too Perfect?

[mlm828]

Ashatan and I were discussing this, and it occurred to me that others may have thoughts on the subject, so here goes.

One of my minor criticisms of Blind Justice is that Jim seems too perfect in coping with the everyday challenges of blindness. I know he's smart and disciplined and has had the proper training. But wouldn't he slip up occasionally and forget where he put his glasses or his coffee cup? I'm not suggesting they should have made a big deal about this, but showing some minor slip-ups and how Jim deals with them would have given a more complete picture of Jim's experience.

What do you think?

[maggiethecat]

Oh, mlm88, once again you have handed us a great topic.

I don't think Dunbar ever came across as the perfectly mainstreamed blind man -- even after a year of rehab and independence training -- although it's fairly easy to infer that his intelligence would have shortened what had to have been a brutal learning curve.

We were given a number of brief moments that, I believe, were specifically designed by the writers to show Jim's vulnerability and his awkward relationship with a new and altered reality. It was Jim's complexity and frailty, as we have read, that attracted Ron Eldard to the part. (Matt Murdock, invincible in leather? Sorry, not interested.) And I am convinced by these images:

*Jim's closed-off posture, arms folded and against the wall, when confronted by Terry in The Pilot.

*Hank taking off in the street, leaving Jim on his knees, panic-stricken and frantic.

*Jim bashing his shins on Marty's desk, a wounding he vainly attempts to hide.

*Karen's blunt announcement that without her Jim can't find his way back to the car.

*Jim fumbling -- there is no other word but blindly -- to return his phone to the cradle, or locate the take-out coffee on his desk.

*Jim's desperate search in the restaurant for his gun, accompanied by flashbacks of the bank shootout.

I have always thought that part of why Jim was so often still -- unmoving -- at his desk was due to his not wanting to appear awkward before his co-workers. (If you move you can make the wrong move: ergo, don't move.) Much of the time he seemed immobilized by his limitations, his world reduced to a three-foot circle around his body.

It was Jim's imperfections that kept me coming back week after week, and perhaps part of that was the tentative way in which he negotiated his surroundings. He was far more self-assured at home -- where he clearly knew every creak of the floorboards, every shelf in the fridge -- than on the job. Even after he'd memorized the squad and interrogation rooms, he kept trailing his hand along the edges of tables and desks, and down walls. When he goes after Doyle, he runs the back of his hand along the table -- by then, surely, he knew where it was. I never got the sense that he was 100% sure of himself.

Oh, dear, did I read too much subtlety into Ron Eldard's performance?

Probably!

[shmeep]

It's weird, but I agree with both of you. Yes, we were given certain key moments of fumbling that showed Jim wasn't sighted and they were well written/acted, but I think I could have done with a few more. I'm not faulting Ron Eldard's performance in any way because it was amazing, but I got the impression that he was playing it as someone who had already figured out the basics and wasn't about to let himself slip up in front of the squad. I agree with Mags that he stayed as still as possible much of the time so as not to betray any natural "blindisms" that would occur daily to any blind person so part of his "perfection" would definitely be due to that. I think that was realistically shown, but I also think it would have been nice to have had the blindness humanized a bit more. That moment when he had to ask directions in the bar? It brought it all home to Marty and Tom and they were obviously struck with the reality of Jim's life. I think we viewers might have liked a few more little poignant reminders like that--only that was undoubtedly not Bochco's style. He obviously didn't want to turn Blind Justice into a Lifetime Channel special so he kept the melodrama to a minimum.

But I can see where showing a few more mistakes on Jim's part would not necessarily have added to the melodrama. It could have been made humorous or just ignored altogether. An actor of Ron Eldard's caliber could certainly have made it work and it would have strengthened the show.

I like to think we would have seen much more of that aspect in Season Two. I think that once the squad had settled in and accepted Jim as a member, more issues related to blindness would have come up naturally during the course of Jim's days and we might have seen more about how he had adapted and what he had to do to get there.

[Deleted]

Oh, brava, brava!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You both wrote all I've felt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I, too, would have loved to see a little more "blindness," if you will; though there's no doubt that Ron portrayed a blind man brilliantly.

Drat, I wish there were a season two............................

Mags? Murdock in leather, swinging off buildings? Yea....not to much.

Great topic, mlm!!!!!!!!!!!!

[maggiethecat]

admin said:

I'm not faulting Ron Eldard's performance in any way because it was amazing, but I got the impression that he was playing it as someone who had already figured out the basics and wasn't about to let himself slip up in front of the squad.

Absolutely, and to me this speaks to the character's pride. I don't think Dunbar would have even considered returning to work -- or for that matter, suing for reinstatement -- until he'd reached the point where he was rock solid on the basics.[/quote]

admin said:

But I can see where showing a few more mistakes on Jim's part would not necessarily have added to the melodrama. It could have been made humorous or just ignored altogether. An actor of Ron Eldard's caliber could certainly have made it work and it would have strengthened the show.

The first thing that comes to mind -- and it did make me giggle -- was if they wanted to go for humorous mistakes, they could have shown us how Jim and Pete really cleaned up that pigsty of an appartment. Jim picks a cup up off Pete's coffee table and some disgusting liquid slops all over his hand and his perfectly pressed pants, he trips and falls face down in a pile of clothes Pete's been meaning to take to the laundromat for six months . . . eeeuuw. Glad they didn't. ;D

Seriously, though, I didn't pick the best points when I posted last night (Well, I was in the middle of PMs and trying to re-do screencaps in the world's longest limerick post :. So, this morning? I think losing Hank in the street -- and then really losing Hank -- and not being able to navigate without Karen, underscored the dependency aspects of the blindness: Jim literally could not do the job without help.

As for the physical aspects of Ron Eldard's portrayal, the tiny subtle gestures and the cautious stillness spoke volumes. I really don't know how much more "blind" the guy could have been! I think the show covered Jim's limitations extremely well, especially since they started at a point in his life where he was highly functional.

What sort of issues were you thinking of, Shmeep?

MODIFIED TO ADD:

Hmmm. There is one scene that underscores Jim's limitations really well, and that's where he "plays up the blindness" for Nancy Dressler. Of course he exaggerated by practically falling over the chair first thing, and by what he said to her -- I'm newly blind, Am I facing you, etc. -- but in a weird way the physical aspects of that scene ring true in a way we didn't get very often. Fumbing to find the door latch? Real. Having to locate the end of the bed with his cane before he could reach out and touch the footrail? Real.



I think a lot of Jim's so-called perfection is attributable to his either being seated, in familiar surroundings, with Hank, or at Karen's elbow. If you think about it, the scene with Nancy Dressler is one of the few times in the series we saw Jim walk into an unfamiliar room without Karen. And he just doesn't seem all that sure of himself.

[shmeep]

maggiethecat said:

What sort of issues were you thinking of, Shmeep?

As many people have said all over this board, if they had even shown more of Jim's journey and how he got to be so competent, that would have been very satisfying on an emotional level, at least for me. It would have given us the opportunity to witness a tremendous amount of growth--like what they're showing with the QB on Friday Night Lights. Now that they know that flashbacks work on ABC, maybe they could have given us some Lost types of moments with flashbacks of Sighted Jim and Rehab Jim interspersed with the current action. But..that would have been an entirely different show and it doesn't sound very Bochcoesque to me.

As for the day-to-day stuff...it's hard to say. You're right about all he did to make himself convincing as a confident and competent blind guy. That was all very well done, but maybe more actual use of the cane? Some Braille? More moments when he thought he was alone, let his guard down enough to allow himself to feel around for more things (or do anything else that would seem distinctly "blind" but that he didn't do in front of others) and then find that he was not alone and someone else had witnessed that moment? I would have liked to have seen a bit more of his struggle to appear fit for duty in the eyes of others and what it cost him, physically and emotionally, to maintain that level of composure.

Really, I don't have complaints about what we were shown because it was more than satisfying on many levels. I just wish there had been more show because I'm certain many of the points I discussed would have been more fully explored. *sigh* Oh well.

[shmeep]

maggiethecat said:

Hmmm. There is one scene that underscores Jim's limitations really well, and that's where he "plays up the blindness" for Nancy Dressler. Of course he exaggerated by practically falling over the chair first thing, and by what he said to her -- I'm newly blind, Am I facing you, etc. -- but in a weird way the physical aspects of that scene ring true in a way we didn't get very often. Fumbing to find the door latch? Real. Having to locate the end of the bed with his cane before he could reach out and touch the footrail? Real.



I think a lot of Jim's so-called perfection is attributable to his either being seated, in familiar surroundings, with Hank, or at Karen's elbow. If you think about it, the scene with Nancy Dressler is one of the few times in the series we saw Jim walk into an unfamiliar room without Karen. And he just doesn't seem all that sure of himself.

Very true, Mags. Since he was under orders to "play up the blindness" in that scene, he did go over the top with it but...maybe it was a relief to him to be able to relax into a blind moment and go with it. I had always thought doing that was difficult for someone like Dunbar, but perhaps it really wasn't after all. Perhaps he was able to just act natural for a few minutes and it felt good. And that fumble for the door? That was before he was with Nancy Dressler so either he was getting into character early or he really was fumbling for the door.

But he always seemed to be able to find the door handle to Karen's car a bit too easily and he practically ran up and down Terry's front steps so...hmm...

[inuvik]

I think Doggone showed Jim's vulnerability well. The reason it is my favorite episode is we get to see and feel his despair and helplessness (until he finds the sign) along with him. I literally cringe and feel sick to my stomach watching him. It's very empathetic.

My second favorite episode is the one with Pete, because again we see a character trying to adjust to his blindness.

However, given that blindness was the reason I watched this show, it's no surprise I would want to see more about life as a blind person!

I would have liked to have seen more of Jim in his personal life. Just going grocery shopping, cooking dinner, cleaning house, that kind of thing. Given that it's a crime show it's understandable why that wasn't the focus. I think then we would have gotten a better picture of how Jim functioned, mistakes and all, had we seen him more outside of work.

[Deleted]

inuvik said:

I think Doggone showed Jim's vulnerability well. The reason it is my favorite episode is we get to see and feel his despair and helplessness (until he finds the sign) along with him. I literally cringe and feel sick to my stomach watching him. It's very empathetic.

When I first saw the coming attractions for Doggone, I felt like I had to catch my breath!!! It was so overwhelming. I'm with you on this.

My second favorite episode is the one with Pete, because again we see a character trying to adjust to his blindness.

In this ep, I love how he takes control and helps Pete - and, in my opinion, it gives us a teeny look into how it was for Jim, his thoughts of "wanting to blow his brains out" and the anguish of when it first happened. An amazing contrast to see how Jim may have been when he was first blinded to how he became, how we know the character.

However, given that blindness was the reason I watched this show, it's no surprise I would want to see more about life as a blind person!

I would have liked to have seen more of Jim in his personal life. Just going grocery shopping, cooking dinner, cleaning house, that kind of thing. Given that it's a crime show it's understandable why that wasn't the focus. I think then we would have gotten a better picture of how Jim functioned, mistakes and all, had we seen him more outside of work.

I wish we had, too. It would have been awesome to see all that.

[rducasey]

maggiethecat said:

I think a lot of Jim's so-called perfection is attributable to his either being seated, in familiar surroundings, with Hank, or at Karen's elbow. If you think about it, the scene with Nancy Dressler is one of the few times in the series we saw Jim walk into an unfamiliar room without Karen. And he just doesn't seem all that sure of himself.

When I watch UOTR, I always wonder about the scene when he goes to see Terry in the hospital, why he does not pull out his cane. He leaves Hank outside the room and walks into ER/hospital room without a cane, an arm or Hank. How does he know what he might be walking into? Then of course, Annie comes right over to drag him over to the bed, but I always wondered why he did not have his cane out then.

[mlm828]

admin said:

It's weird, but I agree with both of you. Yes, we were given certain key moments of fumbling that showed Jim wasn't sighted and they were well written/acted, but I think I could have done with a few more. I'm not faulting Ron Eldard's performance in any way because it was amazing, but I got the impression that he was playing it as someone who had already figured out the basics and wasn't about to let himself slip up in front of the squad. I agree with Mags that he stayed as still as possible much of the time so as not to betray any natural "blindisms" that would occur daily to any blind person so part of his "perfection" would definitely be due to that. I think that was realistically shown, but I also think it would have been nice to have had the blindness humanized a bit more. That moment when he had to ask directions in the bar? It brought it all home to Marty and Tom and they were obviously struck with the reality of Jim's life. I think we viewers might have liked a few more little poignant reminders like that--only that was undoubtedly not Bochco's style. He obviously didn't want to turn Blind Justice into a Lifetime Channel special so he kept the melodrama to a minimum.

But I can see where showing a few more mistakes on Jim's part would not necessarily have added to the melodrama. It could have been made humorous or just ignored altogether. An actor of Ron Eldard's caliber could certainly have made it work and it would have strengthened the show.

So many thought-provoking comments from everyone who's posted. I can't respond to them all, but I do have a couple of thoughts on shmeeps's earlier post.

Humanizing the blindness -- and Jim, too -- by showing that he can make mistakes was basically what I had in mind. I wouldn't want the point to be belabored, really just shown almost in passing. For example, suppose Jim doesn't put his glasses down in their usual place on the scanner. Karen notices he's misplaced them and casually tells him where they are. Or at home -- where he doesn't have to keep up a front of competence for Christie -- he has to ask her where something is. Surely the writers and actors, especially RE, could have pulled this off, and it would have added a little extra dimension of realism.

admin said:

I like to think we would have seen much more of that aspect in Season Two. I think that once the squad had settled in and accepted Jim as a member, more issues related to blindness would have come up naturally during the course of Jim's days and we might have seen more about how he had adapted and what he had to do to get there.

I agree. I also think we started to see a little of that in the later episodes, especially "Fancy Footwork." For example, the way he walks into Fisk's office and reaches for the back of the chair at the beginning of the episode; the way he orients himself when walking into the interview room for his final conversation with Bo; and the way he seems to trail his hands along the walls or furniture more overtly in this episode. I don't think he would have been quite so open about doing these things at the beginning. It's done very subtly, of course, but it's something that I always notice when watching the episode.

[maggiethecat]

maggiethecat said:

I think a lot of Jim's so-called perfection is attributable to his either being seated, in familiar surroundings, with Hank, or at Karen's elbow. If you think about it, the scene with Nancy Dressler is one of the few times in the series we saw Jim walk into an unfamiliar room without Karen. And he just doesn't seem all that sure of himself.

Come to think of it, was there ever a scene in which Jim was forced to deal with unfamiliar surroundings -- without the assistance of either Karen or Hank -- where he came across as anything other than hampered by his limitations?

Case in point . . .



And of course . . .

[shmeep]

Excellent examples, Mags. You're quite right--for the most part. There are many examples of Jim seeming disoriented and needing assistance, but there are also little details throughout that make it seem a bit too easy at the same time.

I was thrown by the way he wandered into the hospital unassisted to find Terry (as has been mentioned before). Just how did he expect to do that? Did he assume someone was going to recognize him and rush to his aid or did he think he was going to just miraculously find it? I'm also even a little dubious about how he found his desk that first day. Karen's directions weren't all that specific ("Straight ahead on your left") and for all Jim knew, there could have been more than one desk that fit that description.

It didn't bother me that he seemed to have it so together at times, but I think that since so many us of are drawn more to the part of Jim that didn't quite have it down and that would mess up, finding more of that rawness within the stories that were written might have been nice. Again, I'm sure a second season would have explored that. Once the worst Marty angst had passed, they would have needed to find their drama elsewhere and the partially-tapped mine of blindness-related angst was bound to get some action.

[hoosier]

rducasey said:

When I watch UOTR, I always wonder about the scene when he goes to see Terry in the hospital, why he does not pull out his cane. He leaves Hank outside the room and walks into ER/hospital room without a cane, an arm or Hank. How does he know what he might be walking into? Then of course, Annie comes right over to drag him over to the bed, but I always wondered why he did not have his cane out then.

I often wondered that myself but came to the conclusion that he just didn't want to 'look' blind in front of Terry. Maybe it was his pride--after all, Terry was one of the few people we met who knew him before he lost his sight. I think it would have been a cold day you know where before he would have asked Glen Semple to lead him anywhere and I definitely do not think it was because he was being sensitive and trying to spare Terry's feelings. Using Hank was one thing, the cane another and showing Terry how handicapped he was was something he absolutely did not want to do.

edited to add--I had intended to add something when the power went off. Some nutty out of town driver not only took out the power line but the internet server as well

I found it interesting that Jim mentioned to Artie Steckle that he hadn't even spoken to another blind person since rehab. Intentional because he wanted to reassure himself that he was coping and coping well with his blindness or he just didn't want another reminder of his condition?

It would be nice to contemplate that in the second season that there would have been more emphasis on how Jim handled everyday life. We saw the bill reader and that was about it. And they said the number of possible storylines was limited! Maybe those unaired season one episodes dealt with some of that!

[maggiethecat]

mlm828 said:

I also think we started to see a little of that in the later episodes, especially "Fancy Footwork." For example, the way he walks into Fisk's office and reaches for the back of the chair at the beginning of the episode; the way he orients himself when walking into the interview room for his final conversation with Bo; and the way he seems to trail his hands along the walls or furniture more overtly in this episode. I don't think he would have been quite so open about doing these things at the beginning. It's done very subtly, of course, but it's something that I always notice when watching the episode.

I wonder if Jim's "relaxing" and appearing less self-conscious about his blindness as the series progressed had to do with the writing, or an actor settling into a role and adding details to a performance?

Not that Ron Eldard didn't hit the ground running! As I've said about 85 times, the performance was already there in The Pilot in terms of both subtlety and strength. As for trailing his hands along walls and table edges, I always noticed that because from the beginning it seemed to be so much an integral part of the character as to be unconscious on RE's part. (I love the contrast in "Leap of Faith" between Jim trailing his hand along the table to locate Warren Doyle and those expertly landed punches just seconds later.)

Apart from being dragged into Karen's desk and crashing down the hall to Lyman's kitchen, however, you could argue that Jim seems almost supernaturally functional in The Pilot: he navigates the subway effortlessly, after one midnight memorization session he knows his way not only into Fisk's office but around the break room and the interrogation room. That said, The Pilot had to be "front loaded" with as much Dunbar-info as they could cram into 45 minutes, and coming off NYPD Blue I think they wanted the character to appear strong -- despite his obvious limitations -- and then reveal more of his vulnerabilities as they began to explore his relationships with the squad and Christie. (Plus, as I understand it, you make a pilot and then you shop it to the networks, so there's a certain amount of down time before you go into production -- time in which an actor can do additional prep work on the character and start adding layers.) So yeah, there are definitely moments in The Pilot where you could say Jim came across as "too perfect," like knowing just where Lyman's head was so he could hit him with that perfect elbow shot.

Maybe it was the writing, or maybe it was a great actor taking a role that was multifaceted from the beginning and enriching it even further. Whatever . . . we are definitely talking about very subtle things here! Not that we haven't noticed every single one of them.