February 22, 2005

The CSI Broadcasting Station

If you pay much attention to TV, you are probably aware that there are now three different CSI series on CBS, putting it a close second to Law & Order's 15 separate series including the newest edition Law & Order: Litterbug Unit.

MSNBC has an article today on the "CSI effect." It seems that due to the popularity of CSI, many more people are interested in studying forensics. Unfortunately, the popularity of the shows has also caused people to expect miracles from forensic labs.

I have to admit, I love to watch CSI: Miami. It's not a good show. In fact, it's actually quite bad, but every Monday night I watch so that I can mock David Caruso's overly dramatic, pause-laden dialog. Then again, he isn't the only thing worth mocking on the show. We also have the medical examiner who talks to the dead bodies and calls them all "baby" and the unbelievably bad storylines.

The problem with this is two-fold. First, it requires me to stay up until at least 11:00 if I want to make fun of the show, which doesn't always work so well with when I need to get up for work. Second, I have mocked the Horatio Cane (Caruso) melodramatic speech patterns so much that I occasionally find myself speaking that way without thinking about it. Maybe I need to cut back a little.

Until later...

3 comments:

Laziest Girl said...

Handsomest Husband actually works in a Forensic Lab and I can assure you that it is no where near as exciting as it is on TV.

The influx of people interested in doing forensics has skyrocketed to the point that some of the Uni's are now offering Science degrees with a specialisation in Forensics.

Needless to say, there will be a squillion graduates applying for very few jobs that actually pay very badly indeed.

Melissa said...

I am always amused (in add..ition...to..Heratio...Cane..speaking like...Captain..Kirk.) by the testing process. It is quite impresive that they can put the evidence into a machine and withing SECONDS it spits out results! AMAZING! It makes me wonder why the local labs have a 6 month to several year backlog of evidence to be processed. Why don't they just send it to the CSI labs to get caught up?

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the show(s) and plant my bottom on the couch when they come on, but they do make me shout at the TV sometimes. Especially Miami. Actually, that one makes me shout, scream, roll my eyes, and proclaim that I will NEVER watch the piece of crap again - until next Monday.

Craig said...

It's been a running joke in the labs where I work. Whenever someone wants something tested and requests a turn-around time that we can't meet: "Oh, they must think we're running this on the magic CSI machine."

Of course, my favorites are when people provide a sample to one of our labs and say they absolutely have to have results in two to three days, followed by the lab informing them that the test takes a minimum of seven days.