On Friday evening Sir Monkeypants flipped the TV to a CSI rerun then promptly fell asleep on the couch. I should have gone to bed too but instead I stayed up watching the show, which was especially stupid because I really, really hate CSI. It’s not a matter of just not liking the show; watching it actually angers me.
This episode was no different. It was about a roller coaster that comes off the track and kills the people on board. I was intrigued because there were only five people in the coaster, but six dead bodies — someone had been killed earlier and the body had mixed in with the coaster crash. I thought they’d come up with some clever way that the killer used the crash as a cover up for the first murder, but NO, OF COURSE NOT. In the end it turned out that it was PURE COINCIDENCE that the coaster HAPPENED to land on the very car containing the very body that the murderer (and also the coaster sabateour) had killed hours earlier. AS IF!
On top of that there were at least three scenes in which the CSI people questioned/confronted suspects with NO POLICE PRESENT. I hate that crap. It’s one thing to create a show like Buffy or Star Trek that is pure fantasy, but years of experience with cop shows has shown the world that there are, like, DETECTIVES involved when there’s a murder. GACK!
Three days later and I’m still angry enough to make a post full of capital letters at 4 o’clock in the morning. I really, really should not stay up late watching CSI any more.
TurtleHead 
Ooh, I’ve seen that episode. I have to admit that I’ll readily watch CSI if I’m flipping around it’s the “only thing on”. It definitely has its flaws. I always laugh, too, when the CSI guys pretend like they’re the detectives.
Also, I think CSI’s not-so-special effects (like when they zoom into a body through its arteries) are really cheesy. The only thing that I really like about the show is Marg Helgenberger — don’t know why. Maybe it’s cuz she’s an intelligent older woman and you don’t see many of those on TV. Of course, they just had to make her character an ex-stripper, to spice it up, you know.
I hate L&O: SVU (although I still watch it, God help me, I have serious problems with TV watching) because it’s so bloody manipulative. Every week they seem to come up with a more digusting, perverse plot. And they’re so full of themselves. Actually, CSI has that problem, too. I hate when the CSI guys rub it in to the bad guys at the end — they’re so smug.
I wonder when the day will come that every TV show title begins with either L&O or CSI.
I can’t believe I totally forgot to mention the smugness. There are no grey areas on CSI! I’ve never seen CSI:NY but CSI:Miami is even worse for the smug factor. David Caruso’s character is the king of “only I know what is right and just in the world.” Sigh.
I read an interesting interview with Marg in EW recently. She was saying how she and the others on her show really hate the spinoffs. She said that she thought she was a part of something special, but now she is just “the blond woman on one of those crime shows.” I think that she and the others on the show are frustrated with the lack of characterization, but it’s not too often that good contracts for older women on top TV shows come along, so she’s kind of stuck now. I guess she’s kicking herself that she missed out on Desperate Housewives!
Speaking of which, I think Housewives will really change the face of prime time TV. Already every other network has at least one “soap” in development for next season. Hopefully at least one or two of them are worth watching. I hope Lost inspires some imitators too — scripted shows with new ideas and real characters are so rare these days.
I completely deny that I fell asleep watching tv at 9pm. You have no evidence and not even a team of smug CSI’s could prove it.
But it is true that hasn’t slept through the night once since she watched that episode. I’m hoping that the venting in her blog has fixed her again.