Hey, NBC, does anyone watch this stuff before it leaves the shop? Jeff Zucker should set his TiVo and catch a couple recent episodes of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.” What began in 2001 as an entertaining riff on a time-honored formula has morphed into a wretched mess, rendering it unwatchable to anyone outside the Vincent D’Onofrio Fan Club. I’ve never seen a show plummet so far, so fast.

Turns out I’d missed quite a few episodes in the last two seasons, owing mostly to the Sunday night 9 p.m. timeslot it shares with “The Sopranos,” “Six Feet Under,” and other HBO offerings. I looked forward to using the last few months to catch up a little, in preparation for the onslaught of Law & Order premieres. The deluge begins September 21 with “Law & Order: Special Victim’s Unit.”

Early on in “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” I’d enjoyed Mr. D’Onofrio’s outrageous, over-the-top rendition of a New York City detective and appreciated the sexy seriousness of his sidekick, Detective Eames, played by Kathryn Erbe. I even tolerated the self-satisfied smarm of the assistant district attorney, Ron Carver, played by Courtney B. Vance. The show shared its rhythm with “Law & Order,” but not its melody. The point of “Criminal Intent” was to take us inside the mind of the criminal via Bobby Goren, the bumbling, Holmesian detective given life by Mr. D’Onofrio, once legendary for his breakout performance in Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket.”

In the first two seasons, it basically worked. I remember an early episode with Griffin Dunne as a murderous lawyer that knocked me out; every so often, they measured up to “Law & Order” at its best. The stories were complicated and addictive. In one memorably mixed-up episode, “Family Ties” star Michael Gross turned up as a psychiatrist, as the Internet TV sitetvtome.com put it, “who provides expert testimony at criminal trials lays down an insanity defense to hide his obsession for his younger girlfriend after revealing to her that he hired a corrupt detective to murder her brother-in-law after alleged reports that her niece had been abused by him.” And that was season one.

It turns out that by this past season, its third, the writers of “Criminal Intent” -led by former “Law & Order” star writer Rene Balcer, who should know better – had lost their minds. Entire episodes started whipping by before I’d figured out what everyone was talking about; the dialogue seemed designed for maximum murkiness. I assumed I’d lost some pertinent brain cells in the interim, and blamed the confusion on myself. But by this past June, it was clear that a new “Criminal Intent” formula had taken permanent hold – one that involved the introduction of myriad unconnected plot strands in the tease, and then followed with a convoluted unraveling of mysteries that seemed so beside the point when it was finally over. Oddly enough, the message of “Criminal Intent” – a show meant to be told from the criminal point of view – now seems to be that crooks are crazy.

The problem is that we’re not going inside the mind of a killer anymore; by the third season, we’re traveling instead through the catacombs of Bobby Goren’s fertile brain. This 40ish detective has more random knowledge and life experience than most of the killers he encounters. He scans a crime scene and sees whole stories played out among the clues. Yes, he’s a character out of Hitchcock, but unfortunately he’s the man who knew too much. He enters a scene already surmising the answers. He just needs the evidence to conform with his highly educated hunches. And the rest of us are forced to follow (if we can) the crazy-making turns in the story meant purely to throw us off course. It’s an intentionally stupefying show; if you’re smart enough to follow along, it probably means you’re watching too much television.

Shows often shift direction by the third season. Bored writers want to shake things up, and the confidence borne of a second network pickup prompts producers to play a little. But it’s the responsibility of a network chief to keep the hit shows on track; there’s always the potential for audience drift, even among top-ten shows like “Criminal Intent.” (ABC’s retooled version of “The Practice” is its main competition, along with Fox’s breakout comedy, “Arrested Development.”) Distracted by his misguided love affair with Donald Trump, NBC honcho Jeff Zucker has allowed a golden asset to become tarnished by indulging the whims of its out-of-touch writers. Balcer & Co. need to simplify their storytelling and focus their energies on criminals whose behavior makes sense.

***

I wanted to like Bill Weir, the handsome new host of “Good Morning America’s” new weekend edition that begins tomorrow. I really did. He filled in during one week in August for the vacationing Charlie Gibson, and occasionally showed a quick wit and enjoyable edge. But as the week wore on, I kept finding myself focused on Mr. Weir’s weaknesses: his squinty eyes, his sense of boredom, and his lack of charismatic connection with Diane Sawyer. Maybe there’s something fundamentally enervating about the task of cheerfully chirping about so many mundane topics for 10 hours a week on national television. Not everyone has the chirping chops of a Katie Couric. But, alas, Mr. Weir (a former Los Angeles sports reporter) doesn’t measure up to the task. If I were ABC, I’d quickly regroup and consider promoting Dan Harris to the co-host spot. It’s about time a man wore the dimples on morning television.