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Scriptwriting
I checked out the show that David mentioned yesterday, Cracking Up, and it's quite funny. The best part about it is that it's not another forensics show, a genre that has been beat to death lately. CSI may be entertaining, with its zings and quips, but CSI: Miami is a long step down and CSI: New York promises to be unnecessary. Miami is so predictable and formulaic that I've summed up every episode here:
9:00 - 9:05: Attractive people are making out in a park/having sex/dancing at a club when they stumble upon a corpse. CSI rushes to the scene in their garish silver Hummer. Lead CSI Horatio Kane, known as "H" for some reason, takes off his sunglasses (which are on even if it's nighttime) and makes a bad pun or other zinger about the victim like "looks like he left the party early."
9:05 - 9:10: Credits and commercial break.
9:10 - 9:20: CSI agents with nicknames like "Speed" and "Trace" gather evidence while "H" finds somebody to identify the victim, or "vic". Somewhere in here we meet the person who ends up being the killer, although we won't know it until the end. Usually this person is a bank manager, nightclub owner, or wealthy socialite. We also meet the most obvious suspect, usually someone who was with the victim until they died, has blood all over their clothes, has the murder weapon in their pocket, and wanted the "vic" dead for some reason. This person never turns out to be the actual murderer, leading us to believe that in real life, criminals do not actually commit crimes.
9:20 - 9:25: The medical examiner does an autopsy while cooing and talking to the corpse. If it's a female corpse, the ME will call her "sweetie" or "baby", but if it's a male corpse she won't use any kind words, presumably because the male victims deserved it. This is where we also see an unnecessarily gruesome graphic showing a bullet puncturing internal organs and blood spewing everywhere. Right before the break, we find out that the victim was involved with drugs, presumably because everyone in Miami is.
9:25 - 9:28: Commercial break.
9:28 - 9:40: "H" continues to interview suspects while his team keeps looking at evidence. The blonde-haired weapons expert will, in her southern accent, explain that the gun they found on the criminal they interviewed at the beginning did not fire the bullet that killed the victim because of bullet striations. "H" follows up on the drug plotline by interviewing a bunch of lowlifes, all of whom not only have a motive but have no alibi and are uncooperative. There is no evidence linking them with the crime, but "H" strongarms them into giving evidence by threatening to get a warrant and talking to them in a stern voice and saying "Give me your DNA!".
9:40 - 9:43 Commercial break.
9:43 - 9:52 One of the agents uncovers a random clue that lets the lowlifes off the hook. Sometimes this comes in the form of a grainy videotape, in which case the agent takes the tape to a generic lab tech with a 1-episode contract, and the tech uses the magic CSI computer to magnify and sharpen the image repeatedly until they are able to view the inside of a shopping bag from an ATM security camera 2 miles away that pointed in the opposite direction. Still, they often can only see a couple of partial letters on an envelope, in which case they run the pattern through their super pattern-matching database and in a matter of seconds they identify that the postmark on the envelope was from the banker/club owner/socialite's address. They bring in the suspect, who almost always brings along a high-powered but ineffective lawyer who allows his client to admit he committed the crime.
9:52 - 9:54 Commercial break.
9:54 - 9:59 "H" hits on his dead brother's ex-wife, the only actual police officer who is ever involved in investigating the crime, then reflects on the case by visiting the "vic"'s family or gravesite. He then puts his sunglasses back on and stares off into the distance with a grave look on his face.
9:59 - 10:00 Next week on an all-new CSI: Miami, rinse and repeat...
Comments
you forgot to mention that for some inexplicable reason. "H" can't keep his hands off his hips for more than 10 secs at a stretch.
he can't stop himself!
Posted by: Dave B at March 25, 2004 2:46 PM
This is very true. It's part of his trademark end-of-each episode routine: put on glasses, hands on hips, stare off into the distance as if contemplating the meaning of life.
Posted by: Chris Hill Festival at March 25, 2004 3:46 PM
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