Keeping Score

CSI:WTF

I'm trying to picture the pitch meeting for yet ANOTHER installment of CSI, especially after watching the NY premier. I mean, I'm a FAN of Vegas and Miami, and I begrudgingly tuned into NY (just like I did with Miami), but holy mother of pearl, the letdown was AUDIBLE.

Gritty, Matrix-style green and blue lens-filters? Check.
A-List talent? Check.
Big-city appeal? Check.
Story?
Okay, no story. We can work around that.
Characters?
CHARACTERS?

WHO FORGOT TO WRITE BACKGROUNDS FOR THE CHARACTERS???

Sweet lord it was like watching A-List actors do cold readings on-set. Honestly, sometimes Melina Kanakaredies' primary motivation looked to be "okay, I've read my line, so now I walk off-set to read my next line." Actors, Directors, we understand that your characters care very much about their jobs as CSIs and the people they are supposedly helping, but furrowed brows and a mysterious dedication to a job do not make good characters. Go back and watch the original episode for the very first CSI. There are people there who have lives outside of their jobs. And they managed to convey that in the very first ep. Please, get over your A-list status and your tired, over-used gritty New York #2 filters and try telling a story with some characters that I might actually give a shit or two about.

And the sets? Uh, I didn't know that Crime Scene Investigators of New York had taken over Arkham Asylum. No, really. Underground crime labs that look like they're covered in filth, with asbestos falling down from the steel ceiling joyce that was laid in 1943 do not exactly convey a "dedicated to pristine and clean evidence" sort of feeling. I kept expecting to see Hannibal Lector working on some evidence behind the glass walls there.

Also, the Robo-cop scanning gun with the PDA on the back of it that could find a lead bullet in a dead rat from ten feet away? I'VE SEEN BETTER PROPS IN ROGER CORMAN MOVIES. Just two weeks ago when my mother was in town I successfully negotiated an argument with her where I managed to describe that while yes, some of the tools they use on CSI have not been invented yet, they are based on actual scientific proceedure and are displayed as new technology so as not to bog down the show by having someone spray luminol over the entire crimescene every. Single. Scene.

And then you blow it all by whipping out the frickin' toy from the remake of Mars Attacks. And glue a PDA to the back of it. Thanks.