CSI Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is a popular CBS network television police procedural series, running since October 2000, about a team of forensic scientists. It is set in Las Vegas, Nevada in the present. It airs in the USA, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia and South America.
The team investigates mysterious, unusual and sometimes gruesome deaths to determine the circumstances of the murder. They also investigate other serious crimes, but death by foul play is a staple of the series.
The main characters include the head of CSI, Gil Arthur Grissom (played by William Petersen), a forensic entomologist who knows sign language and has inherited a disease which was causing him to slowly go deaf, but was countered with surgery. He has two men and two women on his team:
- Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger), a blood spatter analyst from Bozeman, Montana who used to be a stripper in Las Vegas clubs to pay her way through college at UNLV where she studied medical technology. She has a young daughter; tragically, after her ex-husband was murdered, she was unable to find evidence convicting his killer.
- Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox), a materials and element analyst who grew up a child of ex-hippie parents who ran a bed and breakfast on Tomales Bay, California. A physics major at Harvard University, Sidle previously worked for the San Francisco, California coroner and crime lab. She was recruited by Grissom, a man she sees as more than just a boss. Sidle sometimes takes her assignments a bit too personally, especially if the victim is a woman.
- Warrick Brown (Gary Dourdan), a Las Vegas native, is an audio/visual analyst and recovering gambling addict.
- Nick Stokes (George Eads), a easygoing and friendly ex-fraternity brother, is a hair and fiber analyst from Dallas, Texas.
Other cast members include Jim Brass (Paul Guilfoyle), a homicide detective; Greg Sanders (Eric Szmanda), a young lab technician who idolizes Grissom and longs to be a CSI investigator; and the coroner, Al Robbins M.D. (Robert David Hall), who performs the autopsies.
The series is known for its unusual camera angles, high-tech gadgets, detailed technical discussion and graphic portrayal of bullet trajectories, blood spray patterns, organ damage, methods of evidence recovery (e.g. fingerprints from the inside of latex gloves) and crime reconstructions.
The show's characteristic gadgetry and occasional use of yet-to-be-invented technology has moved the show nominally into the genre of science fiction and garnered it with a 2004 Saturn Award nomination for best science fiction, fantasy or horror television series.
A spinoff series, CSI: Miami, began in 2002; this stars David Caruso. A second spinoff, CSI: NY, starring Gary Sinise, premiered in fall 2004. Meanwhile, a similar show, Navy NCIS began in 2003, also on CBS.
As of the 2003–2004 season, the series was the #1 popular show in the United States according to the Nielsen Ratings. It has also been credited for large increase in applications in forensic science studies. It has been speculated that part of the reason of the show's popularity, especially after the September 11, 2001 attacks, is that it conveys the notion that there are skilled experts working to expose the mysterious threats in the world and help bring them to justice, no matter how these threats elude pursuit.
In July 2004, George Eads and Jorja Fox were briefly fired by CBS, allegedly over contract disputes. Eads had been hours late for work on the first day of filming for the fifth season, and Fox had allegedly not submitted a letter demanded by CBS confirming that she would be on-time for shooting. The disputes were resolved in just over one week, and the two were rehired by CBS.
Impact on Television
Originally, the show was to be broadcast on ABC. At the time, ABC was the number two network, behind NBC, and CBS was on a decline which was becoming difficult to reverse. However, when previewed to ABC reviewers in 1999, the show was rejected as being too confusing for the average person. CBS quickly picked up the show for its Friday slot, and the show and the network shot to the top - CSI regularly averages 25 million viewers for new episodes and a remarkable 15 million for reruns. ABC fell in the ratings so far that it is in competition with Fox for number three.
The show was moved to Thursdays in 2000, in a successful attempt by CBS to challenge NBC's "Must See Thursdays" - a line-up which included Friends, Will & Grace, and ER. CSI maintained its ratings in its new timeslot, and when Friends came to an end in 2004, CSI's ratings continued to strengthen, putting pressure on NBC's new Thursday shows.
CSI is sometimes credited with the resurgence of American crime dramas, although earlier shows like Law & Order had been strong for years, and had already spun off a successful series before CSI premiered. New shows created post-1999 include:
- Crossing Jordan, which deals with life in a Boston forensics lab (2002, NBC)
- CSI: Miami, spin-off of CSI (2002, CBS)
- CSI: New York, upcoming spin-off of CSI: Miami (2004, CBS)
- Cold Case, which deals with detectives investigating old cases (2003, CBS)
- Law and Order: Criminal Intent, spin-off of Law and Order, which deals with investigation of major cases (2001, NBC)
- Medical Investigation, upcoming show about elite medical experts [not a crime drama per se] (2004, NBC)
- Without a Trace, about FBI missing persons agents; directly follows CSI on Thursdays (2002, CBS)
Notably prevalent among most of them is a focus on the forensic aspect of criminal investigations. Physical clues are intensely scrutinized, and nearly invisible evidence is often emphasized, such as a tiny piece of thread or a dandruff flake.
