Battle of the Icy, Analytical, Crime-Busting Blondes
Emily Procter vs. Poppy Montgomery vs. Elisabeth Röhm

TV teaches us so much. For example: smart, sharp-tongued, attractive women are always marrying fat, hapless shlubs, then moving with them into mammoth suburban homes that all have suspiciously similar layouts. Then they argue a lot, but lovingly, and with funny zingers.

Also: If there's one thing any F.B.I. missing-persons unit, police forensics team, or D.A.'s office needs, it's a really hot woman. She should be leggy, too. Leggy is obviously a subset of hot, but it's important to make this clarification. Leggy and hot. And blonde.

Blonde, because she needs to be icy. Brunettes (we've also learned from TV) are emotional. Blondes are icy. They're analytical. And they're very, very professional.

The blonde needs to speak in a clipped tone of voice and rarely smile. She does not need to have a personal life. She needs to be hard-nosed and well-dressed. She needs to wear business suits that are modest, but not too modest, because we like to be reminded about...you know, the leggy.

She needs to be someone like Emily Procter on CSI: Miami, or Poppy Montgomery on Without a Trace, or Elisabeth Röhm on Law & Order. In fact, Röhm is an ideal example. Remember how messy and emotional that brunette Dr. Olivet was? Always having personal crises and gumming up the investigations, until they had to can her and bring in the so-cold-he's-near-reptilian Dr. Emil Skoda?

Röhm's predecessor, Jill Hennessy, started out cold and clinical, but then she -- brunette that she was! -- started cozying up to Sam Waterston. And Angie "Brunette" Harmon did a pretty good job of imitating a robot, until that one episode when her skin peeled away and they realized she actually was a robot.

So no more screwing around, Law & Order. Bring in the icy, monotonic blonde. Bring in Elisabeth Röhm.

CSI: Miami and Without A Trace did it right from the get-go. It was icy, analytical blondes from day one. In fact, to accentuate their no-nonsenseness, these blondes each pull their hair back in a ponytail, a lot.

But to show your blonde's human side, give her character an unusual, possibly alliterative name. Such as: Serena Southerlyn (Röhm), Calleigh Duquesne (Procter), or Samantha Spade (Montgomery). Okay, maybe "Samantha Spade" is a bit much.

But otherwise, you're all set. Guys in suits, and icy, ponytailed, leggy, analytical, business-skirted blondes. Now go out there and bust some crooks.

Advantage: Poppy Montgomery, because these days her show's the one we'd most like to sit through an hour of.