Csi

[lordlundar]

Okay, I know i'm gonna get nailed on this, but this show drives me insane! Why?

1. It's on ALL THE TIME! I swear, every channel has at least some variant playing at any time of the day. I'm thankful I don't have satellite or I'd never get rid of it.

2. It's nowhere NEAR accurate. Oh sure, the techniques are used in real life(with the exception of anything using a computer), but not in the time span of a few minutes. Hell, on that show, they can solve a case faster than any CSI facility on earth can gather the evidence.

3. The scenery is a crock! Who ever heard of a CSI lab in near pitch black? And where is the damn lights when they are gathering evidence? I mean come on! when there's a lack of lighting, they bring in emergency floodlights! Yet these freaks of nature can spot a black hair in a black rug with light that only a cat could find fine for visibility.

4. Teamwork. It seems if you aren't a CSI on the show, you are an idiot who can't be trusted with any information. News Flash! A CSI gathers and processes evidence. Then the police makes the arrest and the interrogations, and a DA or ADA moves on from there. A CSI will rarely, if ever, even see the suspect! Not be there in every step of the process!

5. The cases! What the Hell!? I have seen only one episode where there wasn't a murder. What, are they too good to be involved in anything else? I can understand a murder case taking up a lot of their time, but in this show, if there isn't a body, they don't touch it.

VG Cats (http://www.vgcats.com/comics/images/030730.jpg) and Cascade Failure (http://cascadefailure.comicgenesis.com/d/20071108.html) seem to nail it right on the head of how asinine the approach of this show is. I know Law and Order and Dragnet weren't as exciting, but at least they were more accurate.

[Greenday]

I'm a forensic & toxicological chemistry major. The first thing people say to me when I tell them that is, "Like CSI, right?" Um, no, not quite.

I want absolutely nothing to do with going to the crime scenes to do any of that crap. I want to stay in the lab and specialize in one area, like all real scientists do.

CSI definitely stereotypes my major and makes it into something it really isn't. I like the Las Vegas version, but I'm sick and tired of people asking me if I want to be like CSI. HELL NO!

[FashionLad]

I love CSI. It entertains me greatly. Why? I dunno, I just like it. *sigh* It's love.

[LadyBarbossa]

I think the matter-of-fact attitude is what irks me the most about this show and it's half dozen spinoffs. The agents will just be spewing off stuff in this smarmy, smug way and it irritates me to no end for some reason.

"Ah-ha, blood drops. This means the victim must have been walking from the bathroom at 10:42 PM exactly three days ago and they were bleeding from the elbow."

Paraphrase, of course, but hopefully I've gotten my point across :p

[Dreamstalker]

My mom and I like nitpicking CSI. Yes, we love the show. The mistakes are what made me go out and find the correct info on my own (see, TV can be educational!). They have to condense everything for time purposes (although a full-season single episode done in real-time would be interesting).

The computer-related nitpicks are especially amusing, such as getting a perfectly clear license plate from a blurry long-distance security camera pic.

[DesignFox]

I just feel bad for law enforcement having to deal with the consequences of these crime solving shows.

1) they make criminals smarter as they start taking precautions against leaving evidence.

2) they make lay-people think that all police officers and detectives have a magic computer that solves the crime in ten mins.

When our house was burgled, the cops felt the need to tell us, repeatedly, that it was not like CSI and they'd probably never catch the dirtbags that did it.

Hunny and I don't watch the show, and we assured them that we know better than that, anyway.

Imagine people badgering you about their missing shit and asking why you can't be like CSI? :rolleyes: I'd hate to have to deal with that.

[protege]

I watch CSI from time to time, both the Vegas one, and Miami. However, David Caruso just annoys the hell out of me. Whenever he tries to act "threatening," I can't help but laugh! He tries to act tough, but it really doesn't come across that way.

[Greenday]

I just feel bad for law enforcement having to deal with the consequences of these crime solving shows.

Apparently, it's been making court cases much harder for the prosecution. Because of these shows, people expect there to be semen on everything, along with blood samples of everyone involved, hairs, etc. etc. People are getting off because "there is not all these types of evidence", and they ignore the evidence that is provided.

[crazylegs]

In CSI you can pull a print of a wet, bloody body thats been burnt,
HELL NO

In CSI you can compare DNA in seconds from the worlds smallest blood spot
HELL NO

In CSI the Techs can wander round with no protective gear, no hear nets, no face masks, no over shoes, no floor panels, no wall protection
HELL NO

It is however good entertainment, but even if you have a tiny bit of police/SOCO/CSI/Science knowledge you can rip it apart.

[DesignFox]

Apparently, it's been making court cases much harder for the prosecution. <snip> People are getting off because "there is not all these types of evidence", and they ignore the evidence that is provided.

Good point Greenday. I forgot to mention that. The detectives that handled our house burglary told us about that.

Fucking great, right?

[Dreamstalker]

"Neat, plausible and wrong." :D
David Caruso just annoys the hell out of me. Whenever he tries to act "threatening," I can't help but laugh!
Ditto (my mom has commented that he must have taken acting lessons from Shatner). I like Gary Sinise (CSI:NY) though.

I'm probably in the minority of the general public who do know where CSI gets it wrong. (yes, I've recently been considering going into forensics. Yes, I know it's not like the show).

[AFPheonix]

Apparently, it's been making court cases much harder for the prosecution. Because of these shows, people expect there to be semen on everything, along with blood samples of everyone involved, hairs, etc. etc. People are getting off because "there is not all these types of evidence", and they ignore the evidence that is provided.

Ah hahahahaha....that reminded me of Superbad. God, I love that movie.

I'd never really watched it before my BIL moved in, but I've caught a few episodes here and there. Poor Gary Sinise, if I yell "LIUTENANT DAN!!!" at the screen every time he comes on, I wonder how often people do that to him in real life?

It's good mindless entertainment. It's just like any other show that deals with someone else's hobby or livelihood (think all the doctors and nurses that threw fits about ER), there's going to be bits that are made more dramatic to make it watchable. Would anyone watch the show if you had your standard neckbeard phlebotomist hanging out in a lab making H&E stains of tissue? Hell no.

I do feel your pain, though. Horse movies can be painful for me (and probably DesignFox) to watch without noticing all the lapses in horsemanship.

[DesignFox]

I do feel your pain, though. Horse movies can be painful for me (and probably DesignFox) to watch without noticing all the lapses in horsemanship.

:D That's a good point.

[Rapscallion]

Because of fourteen-year-old boys, people expect there to be semen on everything,.

Edited for accuracy.

Rapscallion

[LadyMage]

I am not a fan of that show, its dull, I liked dragnet better anyways (yay) that and the ones on court tv that show the way these things really work

[LadyBarbossa]

I do feel your pain, though. Horse movies can be painful for me (and probably DesignFox) to watch without noticing all the lapses in horsemanship.

Because we all know a horse naturally will neigh when it's on camera, or has been given a command, no matter how simple. And also that no matter how long mares have been doing it on their own, a person MUST run to them during foaling and pull that sucker out. :rolleyes: Don't get me started on the old westerns where the guys are playing tug of war with a set of reins . . .

[/hijack][/off topic]

[AFPheonix]

It IS pretty fun helping foaling though, especially when you want to see if the baby has a spot :p

[LadyBarbossa]

Oh, I know ;) And sometimes we do need to step in and help our mamas, but the way movies have it, you'd think the poor horse is incapable of birthing on her own and that the world will crash down if we don't have a big dramatic pulling on the front legs scene. Of course our current mare will probably just wander off at some ungodly hour and we won't see until the fun stuff is over . . . :rolleyes:

[AFPheonix]

That's what they usually do :p
Our best broodmare was probably as surprised as we were the first time she foaled out. She ate her breakfast like normal that morning, so we went ahead and turned her out with the rest of the girls. My sister left for 30 minutes to run an errand and when she got back she'd squirted out a little solid filly.
She had a look on her face like, "what the hell just happened there?"
She's got it down pretty well now, though.

[LadyBarbossa]

This one will be a first-timer as well, so we have no idea what to expect with her. Her own mother apparently just laid down one night right outside the stallion's corral and popped her out. My Mom found her the next morning and thought there was a baby deer in the field at first.

[the_std]

I LOVE CSI Las Vegas. I watch it all the time. But not for accuracy, not for the science, not for any of that stuff. It's purely entertainment. It's a TV show, not a forensics class.

The people who take this shit too seriously ruin it for everyone else. What a pain in the ass.

[Shangri-laschild]

I'll admit to watching NCIS but that's partly out of a love for the characters. It amuses me more than anything how simple they make it out to be when it's not like that. Oh yeah and the tattooed chick helps too.

As far as the knowledge ruining movies/shows, yeah, I can't even watch action movies anymore without at least once in it thinking to myself "that's bad trigger control!" (Finger off the trigger till you're ready to shoot)

[Forensic Waitress]

It's funny, for my course next semester I will be doing crime scene investigation and physical evidence handling, basically if I do it well I can become a scene of crime officer before I even finish my degree, which would help me out finanically and also get me out and practising what I am doing prior to finishing my degree. I look at CSI and the ladies wear heals and lovely designer clothes and of course as mentioned no protection. But then I look at some of the young just out of high school girls who wear that to uni and wonder if they have delusions of what their future careers could be from that show. And if they have any idea that when they go to a major murder scene they could be stuck there for the next 16 hours.

[MystyGlyttyr]

But then I look at some of the young just out of high school girls who wear that to uni and wonder if they have delusions of what their future careers could be from that show. And if they have any idea that when they go to a major murder scene they could be stuck there for the next 16 hours.

And how much more blood and guts and mess there is at an actual murder scene. Working in the newsroom, I've seen the aftermath of a few people with their heads blown off, and man, sorry, but that stuff gets EVERYWHERE.

[lordlundar]

And if they have any idea that when they go to a major murder scene they could be stuck there for the next 16 hours.

They'd never survive it. I seem to recall (and correct me if I'm wrong) that one of the major unofficial tests for future forensic investigators is to see just how much gore they can take before fainting or vomiting. If they're that fashion oriented, then a little blood and guts and brains will probably make them run in terror. Especially if it got on their clothes.

[DesignFox]

Eww...I read an article about crime scene clean up crews. I can't imagine being at a real murder scene... I'd be sick.

[Seshat]

Heck, I'm not into forensics and I have three categories of clothes.

Ultra-dirty stuff that I wear when gardening or repairing or building stuff and which gets stained and I don't care. I run that through the washing machine on its own, but all I care about is getting the sweat and the loose dirt/rubbish off. What's stuck the fibres can stay there.
Normal stuff which I try to remove stains from, but which naturally accumulates stains from normal living. The ones where the stains haven't come out become 'wear at home' clothes, the rest can be 'at home' or 'everyday anywhere'.
The few things - very few - that I keep in reserve for special occasions. These, I'll take heroic efforts to keep clean. (I don't want to have to replace them.)

I kind of thought everyone has similar clothing categories. And yeah, if I was into forensics, I'd probably have a lot more of the 'ultra-dirty' category.

[Ree]

I watched CSI: Miami the other night.
I had to laugh at the tech who showed up at a crime scene dressed to the nines in pure white with sexy little sandals on her feet.

The flashlight thing is hilarious.
Hit the damn light switch, people.

Also, I love when I see the techs sifting through the scene of a fire only hours after the building was a full inferno.

Then there are the cold cases or the ones where they have to go back and prove mistakes were made in an investigation to free an innocent person, or to reprove their case when there is a danger of someone getting off. Crime scenes are still intact and they are able to collect missed evidence months later. (In reality, it would be years later.)
I think there was one where the guy was in prison for arson and they were able to go back to the house and investigate and found the evidence to get the guy off. No bulldozing and rebuilding? They just left a burned out building sitting there protected from the elements for all that time?

It's mindless entertainment.
It's just made up to look smart, but it's all fluff.

Unless you're watching a real crime drama that presents actual cases and actual police procedures, then don't expect it to be real.

All of Hollywood is fantasy.

I do agree it's sad that people have developed these ideas that it must be true if it's on TV because they hire experts as consultants, and that is affecting the outcome of jury decisions.
They still have to remember that it's an hour long show and there has to be condensing of time frames and fudging on procedures. There has to be some suspension of disbelief to enjoy the shows. If they showed the real stuff, people would fall asleep at the pace of it and how dry it all is.

[Sylvia727]

My sister's former coworker was a crime scene investigator for 22 years before she retired into part time retail. When she told Sissy what she used to do, she innocently asked, "Oh, like on CSI?"

"NO!" :mad:

Sissy immediately backtracked and asked what her job duties had been, how long it took, how emotionally draining, etc., etc. The coworker later apologized to Sissy and told her that CSI frustrated her so much just because people accept it as reality.