And while forensics-centric shows like Quincy, M.E. Characters and, by extension, viewers spend lots of time watching autopsies. Flashbacks to the moment of murder are regular and visceral staples. CSI scratches the same itch that Sherlock Holmes did a century and a half ago: It suggests that every question has an answer if you look hard enough to find it.īut if the show has a retro feel in some respects, it also illustrates how much the television landscape has changed.īloody crime scenes are filmed in almost loving detail. The characters find a way to make sense of the problems they face-unlike most of us, who often grapple with questions that don’t seem to have easily available answers. CSI gives viewers something they crave: solution and resolution to a prickly problem.
Raymond Langston) in 2009.ĬSI has become, for many Americans, the television equivalent of comfort food-a way to spend time thinking about other people’s problems instead of their own. And the premise has been so durable that the show survived the replacement of leading man William Petersen (who played Gil Grissom) with Laurence Fishburne (as Dr. It is, in some respects, a throwback to older by-the-book cop shows such as Dragnet. The star of CSI is its gory simplicity: Find body. Sure, these characters have lives outside of work … but we see precious little of them onscreen. Want complex characters, nuanced writing or addictive, serialized storylines? Go buy Lost DVDs. Why, of course there is-as long as ratings for CBS’ landmark show hold up.ĬSI is the template on which most of the network’s prime-time lineup (including two CSI spin-offs) is built: A group of likeable but serious-minded law enforcement types solve a crime in 44 minutes, not counting commercial breaks. You’d think that, after nearly a dozen years on the job, there’d be just one last mystery to solve: Is there anyone left in the county to kill? CSI has been cutting up corpses and catching criminals in Las Vegas since the turn of the century.
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