After last week’s lackluster episode, this one totally pulled me back into Criminal Intent. While the previews made it look like we were in for a killer-stalking-deaf-women thriller, what we actually got was no gimmick of the week, but rather a poignant and fairly in-depth (at least from a hearing person’s perspective) look at the deaf community.Back when cochlear implants first became available, I heard a bit about the debate over whether deafness was something to be “fixed,” but didn’t truly understand why it was such a big issue. From my limited understanding, if you were deaf, you'd want to gain/regain hearing if it was medically possible. However, this episode brought the conflict to life in the way only a good drama can and — in typical Law & Order fashion — gave both sides nearly equal time, and provided some food for thought. Though, in the end, it did make the “pro-deafness” advocates seem just a little loony (what with the h...
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