Review of C.S.I.: New York Season 1 Part 1

Introduction

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Now imagine that the above intro was written by a chav in txt-speak. Imagine that every one of my reviews began in that way. Imagine that it appeared on a page by itself that you had to read for three minutes before the page with the review on it opened. Imagine that you had to pay for the right to read my reviews. Ok, now imagine how I feel seeing that misbegotten anti piracy warning on the majority of the discs that I get these days. Imagine me turning the air blue as no button on my remote works for its duration. Imagine what mark I`m tempted to give this release without even watching it. It isn`t exactly a John Lennon song now is it?

This has been a public service rant. I know return you to your regular reviewing.

The crime drama always seemed to be the fast food of television to me. That`s until reality TV turned up as the turkey twizzler of the medium. But if you want a little murder and mystery from that box in the corner, then the ubiquity of the crime drama makes it simple. From the dawn of the television age, policemen and private detectives have been chasing felons and miscreants with wearying regularity. I`m not a particular aficionado of the genre, but I have been known to enjoy the more colourful varieties of `tecs, and I`m not averse to a little Columbo or Nash Bridges to kill a stray hour or two. But of late, the detective drama has been taking the fast food tag a little too seriously, with franchises opening up all over the place, and all of them ending up on Channel 5 of a weeknight. I`m unaware of how many Law & Orders there are, but this is the third CSI, following the original Crime Scene Investigation, and CSI Miami. Now the Crime Scene Investigators have set up shop in the Big Apple, with that spectacular skyline providing the background to more homicides and violent crime that needs solving.

Detective Mac Taylor leads a dedicated team of Crime Scene Investigators in New York. Their job is to visit the aftermath of violent incidents and sift the place for evidence, using that evidence to build up a picture of how a crime was committed and more importantly, who committed it. In a city like New York, they are liable to see all manner of strange crimes.

There are 12 episodes in this first half of Season 1, and are presented on 3 discs.

Blink
Creatures of the Night
American Dreamers
Grand Master
A Man a Mile
Outside Man
Rain
Three Generations Are Enough
Officer Blue
Night Mother
Tri-Borough
Recycling

Video

CSI: New York gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer. It`s a recent television programme, so there are few complaints, if any about the image quality. It`s clear and sharp for the most part, and any grain seems to be a stylistic choice. New York certainly plays a big part in the feel of the episodes, despite them being shot on both sides of the US. The cityscape is very much a character in the show, and informs the mood and feel of the stories. The show also benefits from a muted autumnal palette. Colours are minimised and the show has a very cold impersonal feel that matches the metropolis it is set in. Indeed for the first episode, the colours are practically absent, with the episode using the bleach bypass look that gives everything such a stark feel. I wouldn`t have been averse to the look being carried through the series, but from the second episode onwards, colour makes a comeback.

Audio

A splendid DD 5.1 soundtrack makes the best of this television show, with atmospheric use of the surrounds both for ambience and spot effects. There is plenty of use of the LFE too. The Who provide the theme tune, `Baba O`Riley`, and the show`s music is generally of high quality. The dialogue is clear throughout, and there are English subtitles for all of the episodes.

Features

The extras are fewer than advertised on this first instalment of CSI: New York. At least there are fewer on the test discs that I received. The sole featurette is a short look at The Science Behind The Scenes that lasts six minutes. It is just that, with Technical Advisor Bill Haynes talking about how much of the show is based in reality and how much is dramatic licence. The cast and crew also talk about the show`s authenticity.

There are also five episode commentaries on these discs.
Creator Anthony E. Zuiker talks about the season opener Blink.
Writer and Co-exec Producer Pam Veasey speaks about Creatures Of The Night.
Writer Timothy J. Lea talks about Outside Man
Anthony E. Zuiker returns to talk about Officer Blue
Timothy J. Lea and Zachary Reiter discuss Recycling.

Most of the commentaries were gappy, stated the obvious and were tiring to listen to. The exceptions being Outside Man and Recycling, which flowed better and provided a greater amount of information. Still, these will really only satisfy fans of the show, and I found that more often than not, I was distracted by what was going on on-screen. Incidentally, there are no subtitles for the extras.

Conclusion

Coming soon to a screen near you. CSI Grimsby. Where will all this franchise madness cease? I`m being silly of course. Deliberately steering clear of the Channel 5 cop drama over-saturation means that I am ill placed to judge the redundancy of CSI: New York. However, I can state that I did enjoy it. The mystery is a staple of our television intake, and what the CSIs do is get to the heart of the mystery. The personalities and psychological games between `tec and criminal are left to other gumshoes; CSI is about the nitty-gritty of the crime scene. This is about recreating the crime from all the little pieces of inconsequential detritus in such a way to provide an airtight case. This is about the fingerprint, the hair follicle, and the semen stain. It is absolutely fascinating to watch the investigators do their work, and seeing the work of forensics laid bare on screen is a welcome change. The science of criminology is often a mysterious black box when it comes to television, with our heroic cops visiting a crime scene, calling out for forensics, then after 20 minutes of car chases, the results of a DNA test magically appears to convict the villain. With CSI, the jargon of ballistics, DNA analysis, biometrics and other arcane scientific arts are all clarified.

This isn`t a daytime show though, with the gore content enough to turn tender stomachs. More often than not there is more than one corpse on the examiners table, with the episodes usually following an A and B story format as the examiners split up to pursue their own cases. The highlight of the show is the reconstruction. As each successive piece of evidence is added to the jigsaw, there will invariably be a reconstruction of the relevant aspect of the crime inserted into the scene. There are plenty of weapons rending flesh, bullets shattering bone, and death scenes re-enacted to satisfy any fan of gore. But in that curious dichotomy so peculiar to US television, murder and mayhem may make it onto screen, but all of the corpses maintain their modesty during examination.

While the science shown on screen is usually impeccable (I was impressed with the controlled explosion in Three Generations Are Enough), there are more than a few creative liberties taken with the application. I don`t know the likelihood of a small team of 4 investigators having such detailed knowledge as to cover all the various fields needed in forensics, but it is understandable in terms of making the show accessible, as opposed to a more realistic staff of several anonymous specialists. It`s also better value to see more of the actors that you have paid for in the shows. The forensics examiners shown here wander through most crime scenes with only a pair of gloves to stop them contaminating the scene. Realistically, they would be required to wear safe suits and masks. I also doubt whether forensics examiners would interview the suspects. In one of the commentaries, there is some mention of the liberties taken, the 6-hour DNA tests and so forth. There is also a Star Trek quotient of gizmos and flashy lights, with an odd number of lasers and fancy graphics. In one episode there was a device for detecting bullets lodged within rats, and in operation it looked like nothing less than a hand held mass spectrometer, something Mr Spock would nerve pinch for. If I were a total cynic, I`d say that most episodes consisted of montages of actors peering thoughtfully through microscopes. Fortunately there is more to CSI than that, and I wound up rooting for the team as they raced to capture the criminals.

The show is built on the cinema style production values as well as the cast, not least of which is Gary Sinise as Detective Mac Taylor. An actor of his stature automatically provides credibility to a show like this, and his character`s dogged and methodical nature, unexcitable and dependable sets the tone for the show. The rest of the cast revolve around his presence, and the equally motivated Stella Bonasera as well as the comparative rookies, Aiden Burn and Danny Messer provide sufficient interest to keep the stories lively and varied. After all, CSI is a very repetitive show at heart, dogged investigators piecing together clues, with only the natures of the crimes varying from week to week.

A problem with the characters is that there is very little growth to them, for most of the episodes they stay much as they are introduced in the opener, and we get only the occasional information titbit about them. Much of this is because of the theory of relativity as applied to television. On the good old BBC, an hour is still an hour, but the presence of adverts causes time dilation to set in. In the US, as the years have passed, the hours simply shrank away. Back in the sixties on network television, an hour meant 50 minutes of programming, in the eighties that became 45 minutes. It is something that is less noticeable on the broadcasts, but when it comes to the DVD sets, it becomes stunningly obvious just how much of the run time is cut down. There are episodes of CSI New York on these discs that last only 39 minutes. When you have two crimes to solve, two stories to tell, something has to give, and that something is character development. None of the CSI team has a home life, they are married to the job, and the most that we see of them outside the office is when at the end of the day someone suggests going out for a drink. That reduces the re-watchability of the show. It isn`t until the last few episodes in this set, particularly on disc 3, that I saw some added dimension to the main cast. It`s enjoyable to see the crime solved as well as the eye-candy associated with it, but when the story of the main characters remains so thin, there is very little to relate to.

I also found a few moments groan-worthy. The US is still going through the aftermath of September 11th, and it seems a rather cheap trick to use it to create a past for a character. But Mac Taylor is devoted and dogged and relentless in his work, because he is still grieving for his wife, lost in the Trade Centre attacks. It`s shorthand for the grieving cop cliché and it works, but I still found it tacky. Some of the dialogue also threatened me with toothache. "Life in the Big City" and other similar sentiments may be appropriate for a show set in New York, but can`t we consider them said and get some new dialogue instead. I actually laughed out loud when one suspect claimed that he loved the victim, only to be faced with "You`ll get a whole lot of love where you`re going" from the interrogating officer. It seems that the ennui that so affects big screen Hollywood is also beginning to afflict the small screen.

CSI: New York is a great deal of fun. It boasts a top-notch cast, and the production values are cinematic to say the least. The writing is sharp, as is the dialogue when it manages to avoid cliché. The exploration of the more visceral aspects of crime certainly makes it visually compelling, if eliciting a few sympathetic winces at times. But despite the entertainment value, it barely sneaks above average in my estimation. It`s strictly chewing gum TV, flavoursome but without any nutritional value. I found myself watching the stories, enjoying them, and then forgetting them as soon as the end credits started rolling. Perhaps it`s the repetitive nature of the show, perhaps it is the lack of character development, but CSI failed to engage my interest beyond a quick fix of gore and forensics. The price seems a little excessive for what is only half a season, and the sole featurette failed to make up for a series of rather uninteresting commentaries. One for fervent fans only I`m afraid.