CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

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This article is about TV series. For the computer game, see CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (computer game).

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (commonly referred to as CSI) is a popular, Emmy Award-winning CBS television series that trails the investigations of a team of Las Vegas forensic scientists as they unveil the circumstances behind mysterious and unusual deaths and crimes committed. The show has spurred two spinoffs with each enjoying their own success. The first spin-off, which debuted in September 2002, is set in Miami (CSI: Miami) and the show's second is set in New York City (CSI: NY). CSI is produced in partnership with the Canadian media company Alliance Atlantis.

Contents 1 Series premise 2 Style 3 Cast 3.1 Main cast 3.2 Supporting cast 4 Characters 4.1 Main characters 4.2 Upcoming 5 Episode list 6 U.S. television ratings 7 Critical reception 8 Criticism 9 Soundtrack 10 Awards 11 DVD releases 11.1 Region 1 DVD releases 11.2 Region 2/4 DVD releases 12 Online sales 13 Broadcast details 14 See also 15 References 16 External links

[edit] Series premise

The show follows the cases of the Crime Scene Investigation division of the Las Vegas Police Department, usually referred to by officers as the “Las Vegas Crime Lab.” Anthony E. Zuiker chose to set the series in Las Vegas because - as mentioned in the pilot episode - that city's crime lab is the second most active in the United States, after the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia.^[1] The division solves crimes almost entirely through the means of forensics evidence, which may or may not come to the conclusion of a murder or accidental death. Keeping in theme with the setting, investigations often lead to taboo subjects, such as sexual deviations. The bizarre conclusions of these cases forces one to question morals and beliefs and possibly human nature in general.

[edit] Style

Stylistically, the show has drawn favorable comparisons to Quincy and The X-Files. The show's gadgets and occasional usage of yet-to-be-invented technology have moved the show nominally into the genre of science fiction and garnered it a 2004 Saturn Award nomination for best science fiction, fantasy, or horror television series.

The series is known for its unusual camera angles, percussive editing techniques, hi-tech gadgets, detailed technical discussion, and graphic portrayal of bullet trajectories, blood spray patterns, organ damage, methods of evidence recovery (e.g. fingerprints from the inside of latex gloves), and crime reconstructions. Many episodes feature lengthy scenes in which experiments, tests, or other technical work is portrayed in detail, usually with no sound except accompanying music — a technique reminiscent of Mission: Impossible. Often the lighting, composition, and mise-en-scene elements are heavily influenced by avant-garde film.

Although violence plays an important role in the series, in terms of the investigator's actual conduct the series is actually less violent than its immediate spin-off, CSI: Miami in that the Las Vegas investigators rarely use deadly force.

Although most episodes cover the solving of two (usually unrelated) cases, a few episodes focus on a single case.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Main cast

Actor	Character	Role
William Petersen	Gil Grissom	Dr, CSI, Criminologist, Supervisor
Marg Helgenberger	Catherine Willows	CSI, Supervisor
Gary Dourdan	Warrick Brown	CSI
George Eads	Nick Stokes	CSI
Jorja Fox	Sara Sidle	CSI
Paul Guilfoyle	Jim Brass	Detective, Captain, Homicide
Eric Szmanda	Greg Sanders	Lab Tech., CSI
Robert David Hall	Al Robbins	Medical Examiner
Louise Lombard	Sofia Curtis	Detective, CSI

[edit] Supporting cast

Actor	Character	Role
David Berman	David Phillips	Assistant coroner
Wallace Langham	David Hodges	Trace Tech
Archie Kao	Archie Johnson	A/V Tech
Liz Vassey	Wendy Simms	DNA Tech
Gerald McCullouch	Bobby Dawson	Ballistics Expert
Marc Vann	Conrad Ecklie	Assistant Director of the Crime Lab
Skip O'Brien	Ray O'Riley	Detective, Sergeant, Homicide
Geoffrey Rivas	Sam Vega	Detective, Sergeant, Homicide
Alex Carter	Vartann	Detective, Sergeant, Homicide
Jose Zuniga	Cavaliere	Detective, Sergeant, Homicide

[edit] Characters

Main article: List of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation characters

[edit] Main characters

• Las Vegas CSI Head Investigator Dr. Gilbert 'Gil' Grissom (William Petersen): The night shift team supervisor for the Las Vegas CSI unit, and a forensic entomologist with a degree in biology from UCLA. Grissom was born August 17, 1956 (Season 2 Ep. 13 - "Identity Crisis"). He is very methodical and scientific, as well as having a congenital medical condition (from his mother) which threatened to take away his hearing, until he underwent surgery.

• Las Vegas CSI Level 3 Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger): A blood spatter analyst. She was second-in-command of the nightshift for the first four seasons, assuming command when Grissom was out of town or otherwise on leave. She recently moved teams to become supervisor of the new swing shift team. Following the reunion of the night shift team in Season 6, she returns to her previous position.

• Las Vegas CSI Level 3 Warrick Brown (Gary Dourdan): A Las Vegas native and a chemistry major from UNLV, is an audio/visual analyst. Warrick also is a recovering gambling addict which is hindered by the fact he works in Las Vegas.

• Las Vegas CSI Level 3 Nick Stokes (George Eads): An easygoing and friendly former college baseball player and fraternity member with a degree in criminal justice from Texas A&M University, is a hair and fiber analyst from Dallas, Texas. Nick tends to "empathize instead of sympathize" with the victims, which has drawn several rebukes from others.

• Las Vegas CSI Level 3 Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox): A materials and element analyst. A physics major at Harvard University, Sidle previously worked for the San Francisco coroner and crime lab. She is completely devoted to her job and will go to almost any lengths to make sure justice is served, for both the victims and the criminals.

• LVMPD Homicide Detective Captain James 'Jim' Brass (Paul Guilfoyle): Brass was the head of the CSI unit in Las Vegas until he was moved back to the police homicide division in the second episode. He was originally from New Jersey. He continues to work with CSI despite problems in Season Two with his daughter. He's now Captain in the homicide division and works closely with the CSI team.

• Las Vegas CSI Level 1 Gregory 'Greg' Sanders (Eric Szmanda): The newest field worker on the CSI team since the season 5 episode "Who Shot Sherlock". He idolizes Grissom, once had a crush on Sara Sidle, and is known for his "wacky" behavior. He is also known for being naive about forensics while working in the field despite an encyclopaedic knowledge of DNA and Trace Analysis.

• Las Vegas Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Albert 'Al' Robbins (Robert David Hall): The head county coroner. Married with three children, he's often the only one who understands Grissom. He has two prosthetic legs, and it has been implied that he lost them in an accident while trying to dig up a floor at a crime scene.

• Las Vegas CSI Level 3 Detective Sofia Curtis (Louise Lombard): A CSI who became part of Gil's team after the mid-season 5 split, courtesy of Ecklie. She soon considered resignation, upset at the fact that she had been demoted from acting swing-shift supervisor. A recurring character in season five, but in season six she moved from being a CSI to a Detective. She became a main character in season seven.

[edit] Upcoming

• Michael Keppler (Liev Schreiber)

[edit] Episode list

Main article: List of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episodes

There are 23 episodes each in seasons one to four. There are 25 episodes in Season five and 24 in season six. The seventh season has started airing in the United States. The current number of aired episodes to date is 151.

[edit] U.S. television ratings

Seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation on CBS.

Note: Each U.S. network television season starts in late September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion of May sweeps.

Season	Timeslot	Season Premiere	Season Finale	TV Season	Ranking	Viewers (in millions)
1st[2]	Friday 9:00pm/8c (from October 6, 2000 -January 12, 2001) Thursday 9:00pm/8c (from February 1, 2001)	October 6, 2000	May 17, 2001	2000-2001	#10	17.80
2nd[3]	Thursday 9:00pm/8c	September 27, 2001	May 16, 2002	2001-2002	#2	23.69
3rd[4]	Thursday 9:00pm/8c	September 26, 2002	May 15, 2003	2002-2003	#1	26.20
4th[5]	Thursday 9:00pm/8c	September 25, 2003	May 20, 2004	2003-2004	#2	25.27
5th[6]	Thursday 9:00pm/8c	September 23, 2004	May 19, 2005	2004-2005	#2	26.26
6th[7]	Thursday 9:00pm/8c	September 22, 2005	May 18, 2006	2005-2006	#3	24.86
7th	Thursday 9:00pm/8c	September 21, 2006		2006-2007	#3	22.57

[edit] Critical reception

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, along with CBS's hit franchise Survivor, was instrumental in CBS instantly becoming a major competitor on Thursday nights, as well as becoming the most-watched network on U.S. television. It was announced on December 19, 2000 that CBS was going to move CSI (from Fridays) and Survivor (from Wednesdays) to Thursday nights starting in February 2001 to challenge NBC's long-standing and popular Must See TV lineup, which included the hit shows, Friends and Will & Grace. As a result, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation was the most-watched program on television for the 2002-2003 TV season^[8] and has been in the top 3 of the most-watched TV programs every season since the 2001-2002 TV season. CBS has now become the most-watched network on Thursday nights due to the departure of NBC's Friends in 2004, ER's gradual decline in viewer numbers for NBC, and the emergence of another popular CBS crime drama, Without a Trace, from the fall of 2002 until it was moved to Sunday nights in the fall of 2006.

The 2004-2005 season finale, directed by Quentin Tarantino and entitled Grave Danger, was watched by over 40 million viewers on May 19, 2005.

The show averages 30 million viewers every week and as of February 2006, CBS reported that over 90 million viewers have tuned into the series this past year alone.

[edit] Criticism

• CSI has often been criticized for showing what is believed to be gratuitous amounts of graphic violence, gruesome images and sexual content, more than what is normally acceptable on network television and the limits of the television rating for certain episodes.^[9] The show also seems to focus on sexual fetishism and other forms of sexual pleasure.

• Another criticism of the show is the lack of proper procedure and realism.^[10] For instance, the Crime Scene Investigators not only investigate the crime scenes (as their job entails) but they also solve the crimes. This seems to fall under the scope of detectives and not CSI personnel.

• Police and District Attorneys have become highly critical of the show as it gives members of the public an unrealistic view of how police solve crimes. District Attorneys say that the show makes cases with little physical evidence harder to win, because juries expect to see "CSI" type evidence.^[11] For more information, see the article CSI Effect.

• CSI has been criticised by parts of the LGBT community for its use of negative stereotypes.^[12]

[edit] Soundtrack

CSI's theme song is "Who Are You", written by Pete Townshend of The Who^[13] as the title track of their 1978 album. The show's spinoffs also use Who songs as their theme songs: "Won't Get Fooled Again" for CSI: Miami and "Baba O'Riley" for CSI: NY, both recorded by The Who in 1971 for their album Who's Next.

The show is known to also use Radiohead's music in many episodes; a total of four Radiohead songs appeared in the span of three episodes at the end of the show's third season.^[14]

Another frequently used musical artist is Marilyn Manson, who is also friends with CSI actor Eric Szmanda. Szmanda appeared in the video for Manson's song "sAINT".

Quite frequently when entering a sex shop or BDSM parlor music by the industrial metal band Rammstein can be heard.

The season 7 premiere, "Built To Kill, Part 1" featured artist John Mayer performing songs from his album Continuum.

[edit] Awards

• 2002 Emmy Award - Outstanding Makeup for a Series (Non Prosthetic)
• 2003 Emmy Award - Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series
• 2003 Telegatto - Best TV Series (Italy)
• 2005 People's Choice Awards - Choice TV Drama
• 2005 People's Choice Awards - Choice TV Actress - Marg Helgenberger
• 2006 People's Choice Awards - Choice TV Drama

[edit] DVD releases

[edit] Region 1 DVD releases

DVD Name	Release Date
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 1	March 25, 2003
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 2	September 2, 2003
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 3	March 30, 2004
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 4	October 12, 2004
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 5	November 29, 2005
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 6	November 14, 2006
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 7	TBA

The US box sets are distributed by Paramount Home Entertainment, while the Canadian box sets are distributed by Alliance Atlantis.

[edit] Region 2/4 DVD releases

Region 2 and 4 DVD releases have followed a pattern whereby each season is progressively released in two parts (each of 11 or 12 episodes, with special features split up) before finally being sold as a single box set. After being almost 12 months behind the region 2 releases for a while now, the region 4 releases are speeding up, with distributors foregoing the usual release pattern of "Part 1, Part 2, Complete Series" for season 5 and simply releasing it as a complete box set.

DVD Name	R2 Release Date	R4 Release Date
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 1 Part 1	July 1, 2002	October 21, 2002
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 1 Part 2	October 7, 2002	April 9, 2003
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Complete Season 1	December 8, 2003	November 27, 2003
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 2 Part 1	July 28, 2003	October 27, 2003
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 2 Part 2	October 6, 2003	March 30, 2004
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Complete Season 2	March 15, 2004	October 28, 2004
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 3 Part 1	April 5, 2004	March 18, 2005
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 3 Part 2	July 5, 2004	September 13, 2005
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Complete Season 3	July 26, 2004	October 4, 2005
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Complete Seasons 1 - 3	August 23, 2004	Not released
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 4 Part 1	May 9, 2005	May 12, 2006
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 4 Part 2	July 11, 2005	August 17, 2006
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Complete Season 4	November 21, 2005	November 8, 2006
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Complete Seasons 1 - 4	December 12, 2005	Not released
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 5 Part 1	April 24, 2006	Not released
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 5 Part 2	June 14, 2006	Not released
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Complete Season 5	June 26, 2006	January 24, 2007
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Complete Seasons 1 - 5	Unknown 2006? 2007?	Not released
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Grave Danger - Tarantino Episodes	October 10, 2005	TBC
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 6 Part 1	February 26, 2007	TBC
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 6 Part 2	TBA	TBC
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Complete Season 6	TBA	TBC
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 7 Part 1	TBA	TBC
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 7 Part 2	TBA	TBC
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Complete Season 7	TBA	TBC

[edit] Online sales

Country	Store	Available Season
United States	iTunes Store	7 After episode airs on TV. You can purchase the "season pass" which allows you to download each episode after it airs on television.
United States	Amazon Unbox	6
United States	Xbox Live	6

[edit] Broadcast details

Main article: Airdates of CSI:Crime Scene Investigation

[edit] See also

• List of CSI: Japan voice actors
• List of CSI: Korea voice actors

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• CSI Official website at CBS
• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation at the Internet Movie Database
• CSI Music Index at TuneFind

• CSI News at Buddy TV