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.

Have you seen it in hi-def?

[Wag]

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.

Light, Light, Light

[JohnBE]

The characters are two dimensional and they also sum-up a complete forensic case in one episode. I think were they to spread a case over several episodes it'd be much better. Prime Suspect and Silent Witness were two programs that managed to do things in a more gritty way. It comes across as as a cross-between Scrubs and Columbo.

Re:Problem with CSI

[Minupla]

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...

Great show

[John Jorsett]

I just discovered CSI a few months ago, thanks to my Tivo 'recommending' it. It's a great show. The only thing I don't like about the characters is their tendency to use their authority to push people around. I've encountered enough authoritarian jerks that it rubs me the wrong way.

Science for the MTV generation

[toxcspdrmn]

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.

CSI - Crummy Science for Idiots

[wowbagger]

When I watch a show like CSI, I cannot help but compare it to Quincy, M.E.. On Quincy, the forensic science was, to the best of my ability to judge, accurate. Furthermore, Quincy frequently went after "larger issues" like Tourette's Syndrome, illegal waste dumping laws, and so on.

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:

1. Asserting that the rubber tires on your car are what protect you from lightning (wrong: it is the fact that the car's metal body provides a Faraday cage to shunt the strike around you rather than through you)
2. Asserting that the iron in blood makes it conductive (wrong - the iron is safely sequestered within the hemoglobin molecule. It is the presense of ions like sodium and chlorine that make blood conductive)
3. Asserting that electrocution with normal 100V powerline current would create a "fern-like" pattern on the body.

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).

Good show, bad science

[Gray]

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..

examples?

[Damek]

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...

Re:Have you seen it in hi-def?

[K8Fan]

geee, $2500 for a TV show spattered with 20% commercials. Think I'll pass.

You can watch it using a $399 (retail list) HDTV tuner card like the Telemann HiPix, AccessDTV or Hauppauge WinTV-HD and any VGA monitor. I'm using a used Unity Motion receiver. The main thing holding HD back is this belief that it is outragously expensive.

The thing is, I wouldn't be watching this show if it wasn't in HD. It's compelling, and I hadn't been watching any network programming in a couple of years.

Re:Have you seen it in hi-def?

[Stele]

I never would have watched it if not for it being in HD. It was the first available show on while I was checking out my HD OTA reception on my new 51" wide-screen TV.

I'll always remember the first time I saw it come on. The tailing end of Survivor was on, in 4:3 with gray bars. Then up came CSI, at 4:3 with gray bars. As the 5.1 music kicked in, the "Simulcast in HDTV" faded in at the bottom, and at the same time the gray bars moved apart and the image (nighttime shot of Vegas) grew to fill the space. Incredible! I sat there with my mouth hanging open with tears in my eyes. What a beautiful sight! (they haven't done the animated bars since though)

For those of you who think you're getting the same experience with your $100 HD decoder card and your 17" monitor, dream on.

Wil Peterson = Wil Graham = Wil Grissom

[Anonymous Coward]

The main actor, Wil Petersen, was very similar and great in 'Manhunter'. Even his character name is similar.

Hmmm... lets see...

Wil Graham, captures Hannibal, captures Tooth-Fairy, then changes his name, moves to Vegas, and becomes Wil Grissom.

Absolutely wonderful in HD

[jesup]

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.

How many have you seen Katz?

[Kirkoff]

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

not quite

[nomadic]

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.

Re:CSI - Crummy Science for Idiots

[jimlintott]

Last week, during the autospy of a dead hockey player, they pulled his dental plate from his mouth. While many hockey players have plates none are stupid enough to play while wearing it.

Lack of sex?

[Quarters]

>>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!

Sex it up

[Corvus9]

... and its near total absence of traditional TV fare like sex

I was about to go into a long rant about why C.S.I. is about as scientifically accurate as McGyver, but the statement above made me realize Katz has no clue what he's talking about.

Every episode of C.S.I. I have seen is just as titillating as any other American TV program. In one episode, prostitutes are killing clients by poisoning their nipples, which is shown over and over in SI swimsuit-style soft core. The hero can't just tell the cops this; no, he has to "investigate" this personally and in "private". Another episode has the hot chick investigating a semen stain and having to find a "matching sample"....

For that matter, why does everyone on this program, even the skid row prostitutes, look like a fashion model?

Re:Problem with CSI

[quiggy]

There are slightly larger problems to the show than just large logical leaps. Like it's predecessor in the scientific crime solving genre, Quincy ME, the main characters would not solve the crimes. I know a lot of people enrolled in the Forensic Chemistry program at my college (as I was once enrolled in it myself, but now I am just straight chemistry), and I even took some of the classes in crime scene investigation. The lab monkeys don't investigate crimes and the the investigators know as much of the science as most of the views of the show. If you've ever watched Law & Order (which has enough procedural problems itself), you'll see that the lab analysis guys appear for 30 second spots to tell the real detectives about the lab report. While slightly more realistic, the investigators would only recieve a report, not actualy visit the lab to talk in person, not to mention the complete inadmissibilty of any evidence in the lab when the police enter. The rules of evidence that govern who can even enter the lab, also goes to who can enter a crime scene. It's all very formal and proper just so there are no problems when the evidence is introducted into court. Often, as even this is shown in some of these crime shows, what the police are sure of, and what the police can prove in court are often two different things. The lab technicians and crime scene processors don't have the time availible to also be the ones who investigate the crimes. The main reason why this kind of a show isn't realisitic, is that the police are often as scientifically ignorant as the viewer base of the show. Unfortunately, that doesn't make good television.