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The Rise of CSI
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.
CSI is clearly the best looking show on TV. I think that is part of its attractiveness. How many scientists do you know who look like Marg Helgenberger and Jorja Fox?
They might be geeks, but they're Hollywood geeks.
It is by far the best shot HDTV on tv right now. Pitty more people can't see it that way.
The show was rejected 25 times by television executives before someone on CBS realized its potential.
Nothing new there, although they do make nice use of Brass on occasion as a stand in Watson to their Holmes. But this is a problem mystery shows, and novels have had for a long time. If your plot is going to be twisted, every now and again you need to explain it to Watson. I really don't see a good solution...
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
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
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
I saw CSI (the episode with the animated bullet trajectories) on British TV only last week. A laudable effort to make science accessible to the mainstream, but it did seem to me that the "mainstream" they were aiming for must have the attention span of a goldfish.
The Miami Vice comparison is particularly apt - lots of jump cuts etc. The CG animation is sometimes overused (and the animation of a bullet striking a lung had me rofl).
That said, much of the basic science is sound. I particularly liked the admission that while a $10k electronic nose was very cool when it came to identifying perfume residues, the same results could be had with a bottle of adsorbant and an existing benchtop gas chromatograph).
Anyway - I'll be watching it again to see if they can get the balance of plot/science/graphics right. If nothing else, it is nice to see an attempt to incorporate some properly researched, hard science into a mainstream show. Better they labour the explanations a bit than dumb it down at the expense of veracity.
"E pur si muove!" - attributed to Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642
...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.
Now, CSI almost never goes after any thing "larger" - it's almost always just some guy offing some other guy. Also, the science is almost as atrocious as Taco's spelling. On one show they made the following bloopers:
In none of the above cases was the error necessary to the plot - in fact the lightning goof would have been far better played out had Grissom said, "No, actually that is a common misbelief. What protects you is the shielding action of the metal car body. If lightning can jump thousands of feet of air gap, what makes you thing an inch of rubber WITH METAL WIRES IN IT would stop it?"
Furthurmore, the show has to have this BS conflict between Grissom and the sherrif (after all, one rule of modern TV is that ALL AUTHORITY FIGURES ARE ASSHOLES). Again, on Quincy, the chief of police and the head of the M.E. department all were foursquare behind Quincy.
Plus, do we have to have all these stupid shots of what the investigators think happened? "Hmmm. The bullet came through this window and hit him in the head " (CUT: blue-tinged shot of fake bullet breaking fake glass and impacting on fake head).
www.eFax.com are spammers
Maybe you haven't noticed, but the animation only illustrates what the actors are thinking happened -- not necessarily what actually happened. Maybe it's a subtle way of telling people not to believe everything they see on TV. But it certainly leaves the possibility of people imagining alternate scenarios.
Also, the cuts between the animation and the story are always extremely fast. You don't have to have much of a memory to remember what was going on just before them. If you don't like them, you must have hated Requiem for a Dream.
As for hand-holding, CSI seems to leave nearly as much to the viewers interpretation as the X-files. Even when the X-files were good, they still showed plenty of gore and other nasty things. Also, most of the cases were resolved -- or at least resolved in the viewer's mind. Besides, if a show like CSI left cases unresolved, people would get angry. CSI is a straightforward cop drama where X-files was a sci-fi / character based show.
If you really feel the need to criticize CSI, criticize the acting. Those people should be told that their show is in prime time and not during the day.
I always saw CSI as successful for pretty much the same reasons as Law and Order. It requires a low emotional commitment but a high intellectual commitment. They're both about systems first and the people within them second. There is a demographic (a lot of them work with computers) that eats that up.
My only complaint would be the same as a bunch of other people here, they play is real fast and loose with the science. Often it has nothing to do with a plot point, it's just poorly researched.
I understand there are crazy time constraints on network television, they aren't made of time. I would suggest hiring a 'resident geek' to read scripts somewhere on the way out and suggest 'technical' fixes to move their science more into reality. I think it would really help the show, and it would give them access to a world of wierd science stuff they aren't getting now. And make it more crediable ta boot.
People who's heads are full of wierd science are a dime a dozen down at the local comic store (or here on slashdot), pick one up..
I don't mean this negatively; I'm sure you're right since it's just another TV show. I'm genuinely curious as to what sorts of facts or "unobtainalbe" things you're talking about...
Disclaimer: I've only seen a couple of episodes. Maybe they've improved in the meanwhile.
Well, one thing that makes this difference from Watson/Holmes is that the scientific explanations are often in the middle of the show. If, on the other hand, the necessary explanations were left until the end, you'd also have a buildup of suspense.
I agree with the OP, though. The show may be alright but the dialogue is sometimes ridiculous in the way it's handled. Scientists explaining things to each other as if they're all idiots strikes a false chord. And there are so many scientific leaps made that sometimes the audience is put into "Awe gee" mode, becoming passive and having to accept it all (and sometimes becoming a little overly impressed). If they cut down on them, focused in on a select few that really turn the plot, (and maybe spend a little more time on character or whatnot) they could probably get more mileage out of the science.
They probably ought to take a look at how Law & Order handles it. Even though they go into the intricacies of law and police work, they were usually very good at keeping the audience in the loop without making certain things obvious.
One easy way to do this is to have a forensic scientist have more than one working theory that they're in the process of figuring out. That way they can explain everything they're doing to someone else because it's more natural. "I think this because of this this this, but it might be that because of that that that, you'd better check in with me later on in the day. Oh, and by the way, if you find any X at the crime scene, let me know, will you? It might be sprinkled on the walls."
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
CSI is gorgeous in HD - the night shots of Vegas from the air, with all the color; the dark exteriors and interiors which would wash into a blur on a regular TV; the closeups of evidence, etc are wonderful in HD. HD does such a good job on color and low-light reproduction compared to NTSC that people who see it at my house are amazed, and CSI is a great example. I think the transfers or camera work has gotten better too since it started.
And everything said in the article is true - it's a riviting drama where science is often the star, for more so than the old detective-story-ish Quincy was.
I'm shocked it ever made it to the screen, and hope it'll be there for a Long Time.
I hate to say this with all the people trashing the quality of the Science of the show, but I love it. Usually the errors aren't so blatant that they distract me too much. I really enjoy it though. Katz OTOH, I doubt has really watched it. His write-up sounds an awful lot like the one I read in TV Guide at the Convienant store. I think that he then added in his "notes" from the last show that was on. Yes, Warric is a recovering gambling addict, and in that epasode, he did take a fancy to a dancer in a casino. That was it, the plot ended there. She is no longer in the show. It's a lot like watching the show from last season where the man died in Grissom's hands, and the blood was litterly on his hands. A priest had talked to him ealier in the show. As he now looking at returning to Catholicism? No, he isn't.
Oh well, another Katz flame. At least it's my first!
--Josh
There are exactly 42,935,718 letter sized sheets in a square mile.
Like X-Files, the show has a dark view of science.
The X-Files has very little to do with real science. Vampires? Weird implants? Alien conspiracies? Pseudoscience doesn't equal science.
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.
I hope you meant Agent Mulder. David Duchovny is an actor.
>>and its near total absence of traditional
>>TV fare like sex
I guess Katz must be a eunic. It's the only explanation for his comment. How many times in one show can they show Marg Helgenberger in a low cut, tight shirt, bend over, exposing the majority of her 'hidden-assets' to the camera?
Please don't take my statement as a critique of the show---it's not. I like the show, just the way it is!
While I admit that many of the explanations on CSI do seem to be directed towards the viewers, and the resulting dialogue rather artificial, I don't think this of itself suggests that the characters are not true scientists.
... but it's a heck of a lot better than what passes for science on most popular tv shows these days!
Scientists are always learning. I am not in forensics, but have done some time in labs, one thing that is part of being a researcher is to learn from others who have more experience. A new CSI out of school is NOT going to know everything right away. And even the more experienced scientists are rather specialized, and need to consult with experts in other areas (i.e. the pathologist, the anthropologist) from time to time.
And yeah, the science on CSI isn't always perfect
YS
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender