(S01E08) So... the beginning of Conviction was cut off here in Portland because the Trailblazers/Lakers game ran long (Surprise, surprise: the Blazers lost 99-110). If there were any good, steamy sex scenes to kick off the episode like there were last week, I missed 'em.

Let me just say outright, what I don't like about this show is the way that Alexandra Cabot has become such a bitch. While on SVU, she was unorthodox, but passionate. Now her priorities are her career and she seems to have forgotten what it was like to live and breathe for a victim.

Is ADA Jessica Rossi a Special Victims Unit prosecutor? She always has rape or abuse cases. None of the rest of the characters seem to specialize in any sort of crime. But, I really liked how the writers mixed it up this time. Instead of her usual pleading to get an abuse victim to testify, her case gets ripped away by Alexandra Cabot, who needs the rapist to testify because she has bigger fish to fry. The rape victim's reaction to the news was heart-breaking. And why didn't Steele explain to Rossi that he did go to bat for her with Cabot? What did he have to lose? Does anyone else think Anson Mount and Michael Jackson have the same plastic surgeon?

We finally get to see Nick Potter in a courtroom... and he's pretty good, isn't he? The whole episode kept me guessing about whether he was right about the teen-age thief: was he venting his frustration for his attack on this kid or did he have some sort of intuition that told him the boy was not remorseful? We never know.

We had some weak storylines about Christina Finn and Billy Desmond. Desmond is railroaded by a black men's group and then ostracized when he doesn't help them out in a case. Christina is ga-ga over a gynecologist and a playwright. These two storylines are an example of what is wrong with this show. The equation for each episode is to find a storyline for each character. Why? I'd rather spend more time with one or two characters each week.