Goodbye Grissom

One of my favourite TV characters is going away.

On Thursday night (which is tonight as I start to write this , but may very well be last night by the time I actually finish it) Gil Grissom will walk out of the Las Vegas Crime Scene Investigations lab for the last time and will probably go in the way he once told Warwick brown that he'd leave – no party with cake, he'd just be gone. William Petersen, who created the role of the smart controlled Grissom, has decided that – as Grissom said a couple of episodes ago – it's time to raise the ante.

For better or for worse, Gil Grissom is going to be one of the iconic TV characters of the first decade of the century, right up there with President Jed Bartlett and Jack Bauer. What is interesting is that when CSI began as a series few gave it much chance of succeeding. Though I can't find my TV Guide Fall Preview edition (about the only thing I miss about the death of the Canadian edition of TV Guide) from the year that the show debuted, I seem to recall that they thought that the show was "too smart" for the audience and too science oriented. They thought that the big hit for CBS that year would be the remake of The Fugitive which preceded CSI on Friday nights (before Friday night unaccountably became the "death slot" for most networks).

While the series began with an ensemble cast, something that has largely been retained, there was a clear leader of the group in the form of William Petersen as Gil Grissom. Petersen, who was probably best known at the time for his work in movies including Manhunter in which he played a forensic scientist, had a "pay or play" contract with CBS but wasn't able to find a project that he wanted to do. He feared being locked into a role that he would find boring. When the role of Grissom was offered to him he found what he wanted, a character where he – as an actor – would learn a lot and wouldn't get bored. It seems to have worked; in an industry where shows rarely go beyond seven seasons because actors become bored with the roles and drive costs up with salary demands, CSI has endured for nine seasons with Petersen being at least present in all but five episodes. Of those five episodes, one was built around the character of Jim Brass with only three other characters from the show appearing (Warwick, Nick, and Doc Robbins), one when Petersen had to deal with a death in his family and was unavailable, and three when he was appearing in the play Dublin Carole.

Over the years the character of Grissom has developed and changed. This tends to happen with many characters on TV shows of course but in the case of Grissom, and most of the characters in the original CSI for that matter, the development and changes have seemed organic and a logical outgrowth of previous events. In the first season Grissom seems far more outgoing, to the point of occasionally flirting with female characters, but as time went by he has become increasingly reserved; close to his friends and colleagues (who generally seem to be one and the same) but less open to outsiders. This change seems to coincide with the onset of his hearing loss; although he recovered his hearing he seemed to become more reserved. His relationship with Sara went unrevealed, if palpable, until it was finally revealed, first to viewers and only later to the characters on the show.

Grissom has a reputation as a polymath, someone with knowledge on a lot of subjects or perhaps more accurately an curiosity in learning about a lot of subjects. This has shown up in a number of episodes of the show. One of my favourites is when he has to deal with a murder at a convention of "little people;" we learn that he subscribes to the organization's newsletter. His understanding of deaf culture is more profound – his mother is deaf and he learned to sign at an early age. When he was younger he attended boxing matches to learn about bruise patterns and blood spatter, and became something of an expert on the science of boxing. Other interests are more personal. He loves roller coasters, to the point of setting up trips to work related conventions to be able to ride. He used to play poker and played well, to the point where he was able to earn enough money to finance his first body farm with his winnings, but in time lost interest in the game or maybe just in dealing with people. This is mentioned in the third season episode "Revenge Is Best Served Cold" and seems to have been forgotten only to be mentioned in the episode "Young Man With A Horn" earlier this season.

Grissom served as a significant influence to the younger investigators under his leadership. His relationship with Warwick Brown was at time adversarial, but still extremely closes. After his death Grissom and Catherine discover a DVD in which Warwick describes Grissom as being close to a father figure for him. Warwick was always worried about disappointing Grissom even in those situations where they disagreed. His relationship with Nick Stokes has similar qualities, although Nick's father is still alive. This relationship reveals itself in the episode "Grave Danger" (directed by Quentin Tarantino) where Grissom takes on the paternal role, referring to Nick by his childhood nickname of Pancho. More than that though, with the exception of Greg, Nick is the youngest of the CSIs and the one who has been taught the most by Grissom if only because he didn't have the same extensive science background that Grissom had. As far as Greg goes, Grissom is at once a mentor and a model. After all both have widely divergent interests, and both were scientists first before becoming field investigators. Grissom's has close friendships with both Doctor Robbins and Captain Jim Brass, although it's unclear how close either of these relationships is. Brass considers Grissom a close enough friend to give power of attorney to, and yet Grissom doesn't even know whether or not Brass owns a boat and they've never seemed to get together socially outside of work. His relationship with Robbins also seems to be primarily work related insofar as Robbins is always revealing new facts about himself to Grissom.

It is his relationships with women that are the most interesting. We don't know much about how he is dealing with the newest CSI of the bunch Ronnie Lake, but his relationship with Sophia Curtiss, who was briefly a CSI before transferring to the regular police department was quite cordial. His two big relationships though are with Sara Sidle, who was initially his protégé but in time became his lover. Petersen has stated that Sara "completes" Grissom. For Grissom the intimacy that they hove goes back much further than when they began their physical relationship. It is perhaps one of the reasons why he specifically chose her to come to Las Vegas after Holly Gribbs was killed in the pilot episode of the series. The hints about the relationship run through many episodes of the series, going back to the third or fourth season, and when the fact that they were together as a couple was revealed to viewers it didn't come as a surprise, simply as a confirmation of what we all knew for a long time (not that this made it any more palatable for some fans). The revelation moreover was done in such a way that it seemed natural. They didn't suddenly come together but rather it was as though we as viewers were being admitted into this aspect of Grissom's life.

I have to say right here that I am one of those people who doesn't totally like the Grissom-Sara relationship. In my case this has a lot to do with my preference for a Grissom-Catherine relationship. They seem to fit together much more readily. In fact there is a point where Grissom refers to Catherine as being like a wife. While the producers of the show prefer to describe the Grissom-Catherine relationship as being like brother and sister, I think there is more than a bit of truth in Grissom's description of it. I prefer to think of it as an almost platonic marriage, in which they share just about everything except sex. They complement each other; he's more driven by the data than she is while she's more willing to go with instinct, her real world experience has been more worldly than his while his academic knowledge is greater both in terms of degrees and variety of interests. Certainly he seems to have a deeper friendship with Catherine than any of his male colleagues – he's had her over to his apartment for dinner at least once that we know of – and the depth of their relationship has been explored a lot recently. She knows that she can talk to him about just about anything, apparently including her frustrations with her sex life, and she is perceptive enough to pick up on the messages he's sending even when he doesn't know he's sending them. She says that she knew that he was leaving, probably before he knew it himself. That remark in itself is telling, not unlike a woman who realizes that her long marriage is coming to an end, not because of the fault of either party but simply because the time for it to end has arrived. There are no recriminations or anger, simply a wistful sense of sadness and loss. I think that it is this aspect of the show that is most likely to be lost when Grissom leaves.

I have no doubt that CSI will be able to survive the departure of William Petersen from the show. The show has a strong ensemble cast and the addition of Laurence Fishburne as a permanent fixture on the series is a definite plus, while Marge Helgenberger, and her character of Catherine Willows, are both strong enough to become primary characters. What I do fear is that the departure of Petersen will significantly alter the personal dynamics of the characters in the series. The crimes will still be as intriguing – the writers will see to that – but the focal point of the relationships for nine years is being removed and it won't be possible to realign those relationships right away. In an odd way, that might be an advantage for the series if the writers are willing to spend the time showing those relationships changing. It may set the show apart from a series like Law & Order where characters are removed and replaced like cogs in a machine with only slight disruption in the day to day operation. I'm looking forward to seeing how the writers handle Grissom's departure and how long it take to deal with its repercussions.

CSI Season Finale - WOW!

The Thing about Quentin Tarantino is that you either love him or you hate him. If you hate him, nothing he can do will ever be any good, while if you love him, he's brilliant. I may be one of the few people in North America who has no fixed opinion of him, simply because I've never seen any of his movies straight through, and I've only seen a few scenes of Pulp Fiction. The one opinion I have of him, as a result of Thursday's finale of CSI is that the guy is a damned fine TV director.

There's an interesting story about how Tarantino came to direct the episode. He had long been a fan and let various members of the cast who he met at awards shows know it, but it was when an former criminologist named Larry Mitchell who works as a consultant ion the show met him at the food court at the Luxor and invited him out to the set - without knowing who he was - that the seeds for the episode were set. On the set he met Anthony Zuiker and William Petersen, creator and star of the series but both also executive producers, and mentioned that he had an idea for a story, but he'd like to direct it. The deal was done very quickly.

The episode starts innocently enough. Nick Stokes (George Eads) is called to what appears to be a crime scene. A queasy looking uniformed cop is there and it's easy to see what's making him queasy. In the middle of a lonely parking lot is a pile of guts - literally. While the cop goes to toss his cookies (we see him vomiting by his car) Nick follows pieces of evidence set out like bread crumbs, or bait for a trap. When the cop turns back, Nick is gone.

One of humanity's primal fears is being buried alive. In the 19th Century there were actually patents issued for devices that would alert people on the surface that someone had been buried alive. Of course, whether any were actually sold - or more importantly used for their intended purpose - is another question entirely. More recently a handful of real life kidnappers have buried their victims alive as an "incentive" to have the ransom paid, but in truth it has been more often used as a fictional plot device than anything else. Indeed at least one episode of CSI - starring Jolene Blalock in an early acting job - has used it, but no one has managed to make it as chilling as it is used here. Nick is placed in a plexiglass coffin with a gun, a tape recorder, and a bunch of light sticks. He can see the dirt pressing all around him. Worse is to come. Back at headquarters things are going nowhere fast. The evidence collected at the scene tells them little except the size of the truck that Nick was taken in. Then a messenger arrives with a package, apparently picked up outside a random house. It contains a tape and a USB drive. The tape provides a sound track for what comes next because the USB drive provides a hypertext link. There a ransom demand for a million dollars and a button that when clicked illuminates Nick's coffin. What they don't know is that lighting the light reduces the power in the battery that also runs the ventilation system feeding air to the coffin.

The two hour running time for the episode allows the writers to show off aspects that we know about the characters. Grissom's knowledge of insects helps to locate the site where the coffin is located while his ability to read lips provides a touching moment when Nick is recording what he thinks is his last words on the tape recorder. Catherine's relationship with her father as well as her devotion to her CSI family is shown in the scene where she approaches Sam Braun for the million dollars that the kidnapper is demanding and which the city won't pay. Warrick shows his temper, worry and exasperation at the chance that put his closest friend in the coffin instead of him while Greg's quick wits and youthful enthusiasm are seen. Tarantino even accomplishes what I thought was impossible - he made me actually like the character of Hodges, who normally comes across as a smug, brown-nosing ass. In this episode he plays a Dukes of Hazard board game with Greg (a pure Tarantino touch as is Grissom's framed Roy Rogers certificate), roughs up the messenger delivering the envelope with the clue to tape and USB drive (on the grounds that the guy was probably destroying trace evidence) and provides a vital piece of information that helps save Nick. It is however Eads who has the hardest acting job of all. He goes through the five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance, all mingled with various degrees of terror and a decline into madness as his situation becomes increasingly desperate. It's a tough job and he pulls it off amazingly well.

The Tarantino touches are there as well of course. Besides the bits mentioned above, he uses a comedian (I think it's Bob Goldthwait who previously appeared in a third season episode of the series) as the delivery guy's lawyer. The scene between Sam Braun and Catherine is preceded by a scene with Tony Curtis and Frank Gorshin sitting with Braun and his latest bimbo talking about Old Vegas. While some may think that the scene goes on too long (although it does let Gorshin do his Kirk Douglas, Ed Sullivan and Jack Nicholson impressions - a fitting reminder of what a great talent was lost when he died (the episode also included a memorial note at the end which was another nice touch given the short time available to set it up)) it worked to establish just how secret Braun had kept her and just how tough she is. Finally there is the controversial sequence near the end in which Nick hallucinates his own autopsy, as performed by Doc Robbins and his assistant David "Super Dave" Phillips. Reportedly the scene was so gory that it had to be shot in black & white but it works incredibly well because it was shot that way.

In this episode of CSI Tarantino has crafted a brilliant thriller building tension by the minute. His use of John Saxon as the mastermind of the plot is brilliant. He is the villain but we never see his face and he exits the scene - by blowing himself up - without our discovering the motivation behind what he is doing. Layer upon layer has to be peeled away to allow us to know not just why he did what he did but the significance of seemingly insignificant details. Are there faults? Of course. At one point it is crucial for both the audience and Nick to think he's being rescued but there seems to be no clear explanation of why he's hearing what he's hearing when it turns out that the hope is a false one. In another scene, it is difficult to understand why Saxon's character put something onto the prototype coffin he built, something that allows Hodges to discover a trap and alert the people in the field. Still these are minor points in a series that expects us to suspend our belief for far greater plot points every week. It seems a shame that in syndication this episode will be broken into two pieces - it really is a CSI movie event and should be treated as such but the requirements of television mean that it will probably be cut in two. If this episode doesn't earn at least Emmy nominations for Tarantino as director and writers Naran Shankar, Anthony Zuiker and Carole Mendelsohn, and at least consideration for George Eads as Best Supporting Actor, I will truly be shocked.

CSI -A Tale Of Three Series: New York

In the next to last episode of the second season of CSI: Miami a murder in Miami led Horatio Caine north from the Florida sun to the grey urban canyons of New York. There he met Detective First Grade Mac Taylor, the head of a New York CSI unit. That's how viewers were introduced to the third series in the CSI franchise, CSI: New York.

There had been a lot of speculation among fans when it was announced that CBS and Jerry Bruckheimer were bringing a third CSI series to television. The speculation centred around what city it should be set in and who should star. The feeling expressed by a lot of fans was that the series should follow its predecessors and be set in an "exotic" American city; New Orleans was a fan favourite. Avery Brooks (who had previously appeared as Hawk in Spenser For Hire and Benjamin Sisko in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) was suggested as the lead actor. Thus there was some hostility when it was announced that the new series would focus on crime in New York - New York had been done to the point where it was thought to be overexposed. There was some surprise that the producers were able to lure an actor of the caliber of Gary Sinise to play the lead role in a TV series.

When series finally debuted it was not initially well-regarded, which in all honesty is a bit surprising. In form it is a lot closer to the original CSI than CSI: Miami is. Although Sinise is clearly the lead in the series, the focus of the show is far less on him than is the case with David Caruso in CSI: Miami. They have surrounded Sinise with a strong supporting cast led by Melina Kanakeredes (previously the star of Providence although for fans of Due South she will forever by Victoria - or "Vile Vicki" - from the episode Victoria's Secret) as the principal supporting character, with Vanessa Ferlito and Carmine Giovinazzo as the younger investigators in his squad, and Hill Harper (from the ill-fated series The Handler) as the chief coroner. In addition producers clearly listened to the fans who were critical of the extensive character development for the character of Horatio Caine on the "Miami" series. What we know about Mac Taylor is that he lost his wife on September 11, 2001 (a development that many viewers felt was highly manipulative) and that as a result he has changed significantly - he doesn't sleep much. Kanakeredes character is single and was raised in an orphanage, and that's all we know about her. The producers seem willing to let any character development stretch out over time far more than was the case on CSI: Miami or even the original CSI.

As with all of the CSI shows, the look and feel of CSI: New York is expressed through set design and the way it's shot. While the offices in the Las Vegas and Miami series are modern and (particularly in the Miami series) pretty dark, the labs in CSI: New York are well lit and seem older. This is particularly true in the morgue. While Doc Robbins operates in a room full of stainless steel and carefully located lights, and Alexx works in a dark autopsy room with a viewers gallery a story above her, Hill Harper's Dr. Sheldon Hawkes resides in a white tiled room in the bowels of a building that was probably built at the turn of the 20th century, complete with Gothic style arches. It effectively creates the impression that New York is much older than either Las Vegas or Miami, but in its own way just as exotic. In terms of shooting exteriors, while Las Vegas is a city best seen at night, and yellow filters are used to create the feeling of heat in Miami, the impression created for the New York series is one of cold. This is done by using a blue filter for daytime exteriors which not only creates the sense of cold but also of gloom.

The unfortunate fact is that CSI: New York is not performing as well as either the original or CSI: Miami and it's difficult to understand why. Certainly it's not the cast. Sinise is probably the best actor of the three leads, something proven not only by his Oscar nomination for Forrest Gump but also as one of the founders of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater Company (one actor who worked with the company was William Petersen, now the star of CSI). Several of his fellow cast members are also first rate actors. Part of the problem is that CSI: New York opposite the original Law & Order. Another problem seems to be that the subject matter has in some cases been too "down market" and gloomy. Indeed CBS is reported to have told the producers to "lighten" the show up; to show the more glamourous side of New York. The biggest thing seems to be that a lot of viewers - or at least a lot of fans - are being hypercritical of the show, and in my opinion unfairly so. Interestingly, while some people expect CSI: New York to be cancelled an analysis of ratings indicates that on most nights the show finishes second in overall ratings and, when there's a new episode it usually finishes first in the 18-49 age group ahead of Law & Order. (There was a major ratings dip last week apparently based on the high ratings that NBC's show Revelations received and apparently staying on to watch Law & Order. I'm not one of them, and I'm afraid you won't be seeing a review of Revelations in this blog.)

I don't pretend to be the voice of the audience, but I like CSI: New York. In terms of format it tends to be much closer to the original CSI, and corrects the things that critics of CSI: Miami say are wrong with that series. In fact I think that the biggest problem the New York show faces - besides being opposite Law & Order of course - is that some people are either unwilling to accept anything but the original CSI or are unwilling to give CSI: New York the time to develop that they gave CSI: Miami and indeed the original CSI. If the show is cancelled - which I don't expect to happen - because of this it will be a pity.

CSI - A Tale Of Three Series: Miami

At the end of the second season of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation a case sent Catherine Willows and Warrick Brown from Las Vegas to Miami where they worked with a Miami based CSI unit, Thus was the audience introduced to Lieutenant Horatio Caine and the characters of the new series, CSI: Miami.

The creation of CSI: Miami wasn't as smooth as might have been Hoped. CBS, having found themselves with a surprise hit in the original CSI decided that they could catch lightning in a bottle a second time with another CSI series. Other people weren't quite so sure or quite so enthusiastic. William Petersen, who was credited as one of the original show's producers as well as the leading actor in the series, was particularly vocal. His position was that the series should be allowed to run at least five years before a spinoff was tried. Even today the actors on the original CSI are more than a little disdainful of the spinoffs. Still the executives at CBS and Alliance-Atlantis, as well as Jerry Bruckheimer and series creator Anthony Zuiker, were sure that a second series could work, and so, in September 2003, CSI: Miami debuted as a series.

The selection of Miami as the site for the second series was inspired. The city has always had a stylish, almost exotic image which was reinforced by Miami Vice, a series full of art deco buildings and pastel colours. While CSI: Miami doesn't play up the exotic aspect as much as the older show (probably because most interiors and exteriors are shot in California rather than Florida), it does have its own distinct feel. Use of a yellow tint for exterior scenes is intended to create the psychological impression of heat in much the same way that shooting at night creates an impression about Las Vegas.

It wasn't entirely clear sailing for the new show. Cast as Horatio Caine was David Caruso, an actor best remembered for walking out of NYPD Blue after the first season in the mistaken impression that he had a big movie career in his future. There was a certain amount of antipathy in some fans of the original show directed against him for that. Also retained from the pilot were Emily Proctor as ballistics expert Calliegh Duquesne, Adam Rodriquez as Eric Delko, and Khandi Alexander as Chief Coroner Alexx Woods. Rory Cochrane was also in the pilot as Tim Speedle, but the character of Speedle had been changed considerably between the pilot and the series. In the pilot Speedle had been upbeat and enthusiastic, but as the series progressed he became increasingly downbeat and even cynical. By the time that Cochrane decided to leave the series (to concentrate on his movie career, although his IMDB biography states that he grew tired of the medical and scientific terminology used in the show) Speedle looked on crime scene investigation as just a job. In an effort to recreate the dynamic between Grissom (William Petersen) and Willows (Marg Helgenberger) that existed in the original series, a new character named Megan Donner (played by another NYPD Blue alumnus, Kim Delaney) was added. This caused more than a little friction on the set and Delaney was off the show after about half a season.

The departure of Delaney was a clear signal that while CSI: Miami may be a spinoff it is scarcely a copy. The dynamic of the show is different from the "mothership". While the original CSI is very much an ensemble show, to the point where there is at least one episode where Willows and Grissom - the leading characters - are absent except for all but one and two scenes respectively, CSI: Miami is very much about Horatio Caine. In fact that's probably a major reason for Delaney's departure; as much as anything her character wasn't able to establish herself alongside Caine. His private life is far more exposed than anyone on either the original show or CSI: New York, and certainly more than those of his supporting characters. Horatio is a former member of the Bomb Squad who became a Crime Scene Investigator, although he's clearly more at home in the field or in the interrogation room. We know that Horatio had a brother, another cop killed while undercover on a drug case (apparently anyway), and that he is in love with his sister-in-law, Detective Yelena Salas (played by Sofia Milos), which complicates their working relationship since she works a lot of cases with him. Complicating matters further is that she is involved with the rather slimy Internal Affairs officer, Rick Stetler, who is Horatio's nemesis within the department. It is difficult to imagine an episode of CSI: Miami without David Caruso being present. Although this is in part because of the way his character is written, it is also because none of the other major characters - and maybe none of the actors - is strong enough to fully carry an episode on their own. Of the investigators, Emily Proctor's character is about the closest to being able to carry an episode but it is difficult to imagine her character as the main one for a whole episode. Certainly the other two investigators - Adam Rodriguez's Delko and Ryan Wolfe, played by Jonathon Togo - don't work as leading characters yet. I think perhaps this weakness of CSI: Miami is a direct result of the decision to make Caine such a dominant figure. The chemistry that exists between the characters on the original CSI doesn't exist as strongly on this show. The problem is that it doesn't exist because it doesn't have to because these characters are only meant to support Caine, not to be anything approaching his equal.

CSI - A Tale Of Three Series: Las Vegas

Nobody gave CSI: Crime Scene Investigation much of a chance when it debuted in 2000. The hot show that year was supposed to be the remake of The Fugitive starring Tim Daly and Mikelti Williamson in the roles played by David Jansen and Barry Morse in the original series. CSI wasn't given much of a chance because it was "science" and conventional wisdom had it that people didn't want "science". As so often happens, conventional wisdom was wrong. The Fugitive was a colossal dud, in part I think because the producers were unable to capture qualities that made the original work and indeed weren't working hard to try, while CSI so dominated its Friday night time slot that CBS decided to try it against NBC's dominant comedy lineup on Thursday night. At 9 p.m. Eastern it went up against Will & Grace and Just Shoot Me on NBC and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire on ABC. It killed Millionaire (although so did overexposure) and eventually pushed Will & Grace into an earlier time slot, while Just Shoot Me was moved to a different night. Not only that, the series was so strong in reruns that CBS has used CSI reruns during the regular season as temporary replacements for series that have been cancelled and for which no replacement is available. In addition they've added two spin off series to the mix as well as a host of imitators. So what made the original CSI so successful? After all, it wasn't apparent in the beginning - ABC rejected the show as being "too confusing" for the ordinary viewer and San Francisco Chronicle reviewer John Carman said that the reason a show with this take on investigating crimes hadn't been done before was that it was "boring". (On the other hand he like Bette Midler's show.)

The biggest thing that the show has going for it is the cast and crew. While William Petersen was scarcely a household name before CSI, he did have fans from movies like To Live And Die in LA and Manhunter. Playing Gil Grissom isn't a major step for Petersen, but playing him with a mixture of laid back humour and quiet thoughtful eccentricity would seem to be a departure for the actor who appeared in those two movies where he played intense characters. Yet the show doesn't really revolve around him. While Marg Helgenberger's Catherine Willows may not be Grissom's equal she is in some ways a more rounded - and grounded - character. She has a personal life and a back story, and it's not clear that Grissom does. Certainly we know more about her past than we do about his, and it's a not entirely savory past either. Of course, Catherine is the exception rather than the rule simply because we know more about her past than that of the other characters. The secondary roles of Sarah Sidle (Jorja Fox), Warrick Brown (Gary Dourdan), Nick Stokes (George Eads), and police Captain Jim Brass have personal lives that only appear when they have some relevancy to the story being told, and that isn't all that often. In some ways we know more about two of the supporting characters - former DNA expert and now junior investigator Greg Sanders, and Coroner Dr. Albert Robbins - than we do about the others. Indeed, Sanders may give us something of an insight into the younger Grissom if only because Greg is a person of catholic interests and a scientific way of thinking who gives up focusing on a scientific specialty (DNA for Greg, Forensic entomology for Grissom) in order to see the wider picture.

Writing and direction are also important to the series. The show is in essence a police procedural but the procedure is different in that the focus is as much as proving how it was done as it is on proving who did it. While other shows depend on eye witnesses to make their case, on all of the CSI shows the focus is on the evidence because the evidence doesn't lie and more importantly doesn't interpret itself. This brings up a major aspect of the show, the "oh wow" and "oh gross" moments. The producers of CSI don't just explain what the evidence is or what happened, they show it. If a victim has been shot for instance, they won't just explain the damage that the bullet did, they show the path the bullet traveled when it entered the body and the damage that it does. They'll also recreate the crime as envisioned by Grissom or one of the others. As for the "oh gross" factor, they have shown more than a few extremely graphic autopsies; in Thursday night's episode they showed Robbins removing the brain from a corpse, and at various times they've shown considerable amounts of blood.

The final piece of the puzzle for the original CSI is that it's set in Las Vegas on the night shift. In the first episode, Grissom tells a character that the Las Vegas crime lab is the second best in the country. In fact the real Las Vegas crime lab is the second busiest in the United States behind only the FBI lab at Quantico Virginia. This may be why the series was set in Las Vegas, but the city is very much a character in it's own right. It's important that it's the night shift because the perception is that Las Vegas comes alive at night. The city is almost ordinary in the daylight but when the neon shines it acquires a glamour that hides the less savory side. It's a city where the bizarre can happen because the city actively promotes that aspect of it's personality. You expect that almost anything can happen in Vegas and in the end it helps to both set the mood and allow us to suspend our disbelief.