The Rise of CSI

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation has become the most successful, intelligent, improbable and geekiest drama on commercial network TV. Considering its setting -- Las Vegas -- and its subject matter - decomposing pigs, corpse-sucking larvae, transgender serial killers, serial killer make-up artists, murderous and skate-wielding hockey fiends -- and its near total absence of traditional TV fare like sex or shoot-em-ups, this show shatters conventional wisdom about what people want to see on TV. A year ago, CSI seemed promising. Now it's great and getting steadily better. And as CSI has become more successful, its production values have soared. At times, it's beautifully shot, a cross between the old Miami Vice and the early days of The X-Files, from which it borrows heavily.

The stars of CSI are William Petersen, 49, who plays the solitary, brooding, and obsessively scientific Las Vegas Crime Scene Investigations chief Gil Grissom, and Marge Helgenberger, who plays his sidekick Catherine Willows. They have a team of young and hunky criminalists, including a recovering gambling addict and an ex-jock who has fallen in love with a casino hooker. According to Variety, C.S.I. has become the number two drama on network TV (behind ER), with over 25 million viewers a week.

The real star of the show is science. Grissom and Willows and the other criminalists share one pronounced trait -- they believe nothing anybody tells them, and they only trust solid evidence. They depend heavily on a well-equipped crime lab and use a wide variety of scientific tools to re-construct crimes. Like X-Files, the show shoots many scenes in darkness and shadow, and has a tendency to include brief and disciplined flashes of shocking gore: the path of a bullet will be illustrated graphically, or a diseased organ, a rotting corpse or slashed artery. Computers are a mainstream tool of this crew, along with smart thinking, and laser and DNA testing.

Like X-Files, the show has a dark view of science. Science is the real hero and the real star, but it's used mostly to reveal truth in sad circumstances. The CSI criminalists work in a depressing world where they nonetheless seek the raw truth, and believe in the ability of science to uncover it. Grissom is an older David Duchovny. He has a lonely life, a corrupt boss, endemic authority problems, and absolutely no patience for the stupid, dishonest or lazy. He shares another trait with Mulder -- he has to deal with the fact that in this world, the good guys don't always win.

It's fitting that TV's most intelligent drama follows one of its shlockiest programs -- Survivor. It would seem to be a foolish pairing, an idiotic broadcast followed by one so cerebral. Together the two shows cover the spectrum of contemporary TV. But while Survivor seems to become more unbearable by the week. CSI, already good, is getting better all the time -- gutsy, smart and inventive.

Comments

Painful grammar

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got be kidding with the insanely poor grammar. As one of the regular columnists with some supposed role in representing the thoughtful tech community, could you make a tad more of an effort?

"it's" means "it is."

"its" is similar to "my" or "your".

its setting. its subject matter. etc...

Nice Show, Obsolete Data

[NReitzel]

While the modus operandi of the show is stimulating and thought provoking, the facts presented are sometimes from some parallel universe. I'm a licensed EPA inspector, and sometimes the writers of this show come up with things that might have been feasible thirty years ago, but aren't plausible in our modern safety-oriented society. This leads me to believe that the writers include among them some old fart (from a fellow OFC* member) who hasn't let factuality come in the way of a good spin. Perhaps he (she?) is an out-of-work political speech writer.

I'm all for using clever scientific methods to knock off troublesome momos, but using stuff that has been unobtainable for twenty years stretches credibility a bit. While that bothers me personally, a worse possibility is causing people who aren't knowledgable (like network TV watchers) to want our government to institute even nastier safety restrictions to solve problems that have actually been fixed for decades.

Ok, it's a nit, but it bugs me.

* Old Farts Club

CSI may be good...

[big_debacle]

...but some of the shows on TLC and the like such as Forensic Detectives are far superior. They look at real cases and over the course of the half hour show can take you over the investigative steps even if they lasted a year+. In addition, they have no need to gloss over certain details or make something look cool my doing a computer generated graphic. For example, the bullet pierced the lung is sufficient explanation without showing an animated picture of the same lung deflating. Check it out sometime.

Re:CSI - Crummy Science for Idiots

[Tony Shepps]

Furthermore, Quincy frequently went after "larger issues" like...

Like punk rock. In Next Stop Nowhere: Quincy, the Punk Rock Episode, Quincy tackled punk rock, with exactly that sort of "larger issue" attitude. It showed how punk threatened our early-80s values, showing a mosh pit in which someone was stabbed with an ice pick, "punk" self-mutilation, etc.

Luckily the whole thing wrapped up safe, with ol' Quice dancing to the sounds of Tommy Dorsey, and asking: "Why would anyone want to listen to music that makes you hate, when you can listen to music that makes you love." Why indeed.

no show has ever been in DD5.1 on CBS-HD

[ADebar]

I don't know what dream world you were in when you saw DD5.1 kick in during CSI. CBS has never passed 5.1 sound on their HD feed.

Re:CSI - Crummy Science for Idiots

[wowbagger]

Actually, I never said a car was a perfect Faraday cage - I just said that it was the conductivity of the car, not the alleged insulation of the tires, that provides the protection.

And a Faraday cage is a conductive enclosure, period. It doesn't have to be mesh, or solid metal. I don't care what you call it, a closed conductive enclosure is a Faraday cage, be it mesh or solid.

An ideal Faraday cage would have to be superconducting so that the skin effect depth was zero for all frequencies. However, in practice the idea is to provide enough attenuation that the harmful effects of the signals of interest are mitigated.

And to reply to some of the other poster's questions - yes, you would get a shock if you were touching two points of the interior of the car - steel isn't a superconductor, there will be a definite I*R drop across the metal. However, you are a DAMN sight better off letting the car take 99% of the current than YOU taking 100% of it.