Talk:CSI: Crime Scene Investigation/Archive 1

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Changes lyrics

On a more serious note, does that speculation regarding the meaning of the lyrics to David Bowie's "Changes" really belong in an encyclopedia article? -Etoile 16:36, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Other shows siphoning ratings

The bit about shows launched to try to "siphon" CSI's ratings seems to violate NPOV. (Not to mention the fact that at least one of the shows mentioned therein, L&O:SVU, predates CSI.) 24.161.108.255 08:16, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Director of the Crime Lab

Who's the current Director of the Crime Lab in the 2005 plot line? It used to be Brass, but he was replaced in the pilot, and Ecklie is not the Assistant Director, but who's the Director? -- The Anome 12:24, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

I think Ecklie actually is the director as of the most recent season. -Etoile 18:15, 14 Jun

2005 (UTC) Nope, Etoile. Before the split of night-shift team. Ecklie is a supervisor on day-shift. --Genocide2st 19:09, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

First things first, Jim Brass was the Supervisor of night shift, never the director of the Las Vegas Crime Lab. Because Holly Gribbs died on his watch, Brass was transferred to another department and position. He became Captain of Homicide.

Conrad Ecklie was promoted from day shift Supervisor to Assistant Director, as mentioned in episode 5x05, "Swap Meet". Ecklie replaced Robert Cavallo (frequently spelled "Carvallo", most likely due to being spelled that way on imdb.com, yet both visual and audio references in the actual series give his name as "Cavallo").

The actual Director of the Las Vegas Crime Lab, if there is one, has never been seen on the program, and no name has ever been given to this character. It's possible that the Sheriff is the de facto Director, without having the title of Director. --Mapsandlegends 23:59, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Clarification, Brass is a Captain in Homicide, not of. Ipstenu 20:55, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Cleanup tag

I've added a cleanup tag because this article is mostly a conglomeration of facts and doesn't really have a nice flow to it. --tomf688^(talk) 02:36, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

Entry needs more information

I tried to clean up this entry, but it needs a lot more information!

Above comment by User:Gabrielarana. Ductape Daredevil 22:26, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure that the entry was really "cleaned up" - it looks like a lot of information was removed, and I'm not sure if it's for the better or not. YMMV. -Etoile 15:26, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Many of the facts were irrelevant and seemed only to underscore the rivalry between ABC and CBS. Though the length may have decreased, the amount of information --save the needless aside of the choice of Las Vegas-- has remained the same.

Above comment by User:Gabrielarana.

Address significance

I noticed the address 3057 Westfall Ave. Las Vegas, NV 89109 mentioned in at least two episodes (5x22 and 5x24). Is there a significance to this address or numbers? To no surprise, the address did not come up anywhere in Yahoo! Maps, Mapquest or Google Maps. - Ash Lux 22:55, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You get a hit for NV 89109 but i don't think anything else. Erm.. since i don't live in the US are my results correct. I trust the address is fictitious.

Networks

On the right side, under networks, should "Spike TV" be added in addition to CBS?

No, since Spike only picks the show up in syndication. The reason I added CTV to the list was because CTV does a simul-cast with CBS of CSI on Thursday nightPinkfloydfan 01:21, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Picture Subtraction

This may be of more interest for another article that i'm not gonna make the effort to track down:

In summer 2005 (July, i think), a CSI:LV ep aired (presumably re-aired and presumably from 2004-2005) in which a hotel exec had done two murder/rapes something like 5-10 years apart, the second being that of an airline stewardess whose luggage he kept. Between the two, the technology had been developed to remove the repetitive background printed during manufacture of a bedspread from an image, producing a usable handprint, which the judge would not accept as the basis for a search warrant on an ex-con (who turned out to have been the victim's dope-dealer but not the perp) bcz the technology was too new.

A murder case w/ some of those particulars actually existed, but it was over 25 years ago.

JPL or one of its sub-contractors developed related technology for analysis of images returned from space,
the evidence was a floral-print bedspread with a bloody handprint, and
"picture subtraction" was successful in tying a suspect to the scene, to the investigators' satisfaction, but
it was ruled legally irrelevant for lack of basis in "established science" validating it.

I've formally requested an article on picture subtraction, but this may be either another path to that article, or of use for this talk page's article -- tho obviously research at WP is needed first. (Hmm, to provide a basis for accepting it as verifiable knowledge. [grin])
--Jerzy·t 15:18, 2005 August 1 (UTC)

I Googled for "picture subtraction", and failed to find any uses of the term in the sense that was meant in the series. I agree, this technique is certainly a valid image-processing technique, but the term "picture subtraction" does not seem, as far as I can tell, to be used for it. Can you come up with a non-CSI cite for this technique? -- Karada 07:24, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Ah. I've found the term which is commonly used, namely "image differencing". I'll edit [[[WP:RA]] to request this, iinstead. -- Karada 07:28, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Comic Book!?

I was browsing through bookshelves at a library and I found a CSI comic book or graphic novel, if it is the appropriate term. I am so amazed that they made CSI in comic book form, when I read some parts it's a bit funny seeing the characters. Maybe because I am used to seeing the real ones.

In any case, if anyone who has extensive knowledge of this, please enlightenment everyone.--Janarius 02:48, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

The comics are published by IDW Publishing. Google for "CSI comic", which gets you this, [1], among many other hits. -- Karada 07:19, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

The CSI Graphic novel, entitled Serial is written by CSI novel and PC-game writer, Max Allan Collins. It is drawn and inked by the people who worked on Road to Predition with Collins. The basic plot is a serial killer copy-catting the Jack the Ripper murders during a Ripper-mania festivle in Vegas.

They are published in the UK by Titan Books who have a page on them [2] as do IDW Publishing [3]. I haven't read them but it looks like we need and entry for the graphic novels/comics as both the Titan and IDW Publishing only point at general pages - there is possibly enough information here for someone more knowledgable to at least get a stub going. Also while we are at it there are CSI novels that need their own entry too. (Emperor 19:54, 16 February 2006 (UTC))

OK I started the entry: CSI (comic) - hopefully someone can expand that at some point (Emperor 01:52, 22 February 2006 (UTC))

Regular Characters?

According to the article, Wallace Langham (David Hodges) and Louise Lombard (Sofia Curtis) are listed as being main characters in Season 6. While they are definitely major recurring characters, in my mind, only people featured in the introductory credits should be considered "main" characters. And, as of Dog Eat Dog, they are not listed. In keeping with this, I suggest that we move the entries on Hodges and Sofia to the recurring characters section as well as remove them from the table at the top. Rascalb 10:33, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

David Berman is not the David Berman listed in Wiki

New in these parts... Just noticed that the link to "David Berman" goes to someone besides the David Berman who acts on the show. They don't look remotely alike.

Whoever knows how to handle something like this, please do. Thanks!

Bobbo

I will try to create a disambiguation page for David Berman and then we will need to add a page for this David Berman Gadig 18:01, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Ray O'Riley

When and why did Detective Ray O'Riely leave the show? Pinkfloydfan 04:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Characters information

Now that most characters are getting their own articles, do we really need that much information about them listed on the main page? A lot of series articles only list the characters, with links to their profiles, and I think it's a good idea that helps unclutter the page. What do you think? --Andromeda 16:25, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. There should be a character page like the episodes page. Vesperholly 05:01, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Dr Robbins entry includes the following information "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." but on his profile page it says "the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Companion makes reference to his involvement in an accident with a drunk driver". More detailed citations are needed for both references and the CSI Companion may not be canon. -- Horkana

IMDB Link

The IMDB link in the top-right box links to The O.C, and not CSI. Paranoid as I am I figure this is either a prank by some kid, or some network station promotion attempt... Anyway, it should be changed.

Fixed Stordoff 16:41, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Criticisms section is a mess

The criticisms section as it stands now is completely unsourced and comes off as irredeemably POV. I have placed an {{unreferenced|date=August 2006}} tag on the section. 23skidoo 04:38, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Grissom and Brass

I usually only watch the show in sydication, but it seems to me that, at least in the begining, Grissom and Brass didn't get along too well. Does their relationship improve in later seasons? PrometheusX303 19:48, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

It does indeed improve, however, Brass does not like the fact Gil rarely has a gun with him. The main reason they were not very friendly in the beginning was because Brass was the original Grave Yard Supervisor and was demoted to homicide after the Holly Gribbs incident. After Brass was placed in homicide, the CSIs and Brass all started to have improved realtionships.Pinkfloydfan 00:31, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Episode Numbers

The episodes page states that The current number of episodes to date is 130. However, this article frequently uses numbers much higher than 130. What gives? PrometheusX303 20:01, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

That's actually quite easy to explain. The two most common ways to number an episode are either by it's broadcast/prodiction number(ie, the 18th episode aired, or the 32nd one produced) or, as used here(and in most other articles as well) to code it as the Season Number, followed by the Episode Number for that season(assuming the above examples are CSI episodes, the 18th episode, as it was part of the first season would become 118, or 1x18, with the x serving to seperate the season and episode numbers, and the 32nd episode would be 209, as it was the ninth episode of the second season). It takes some getting used to, but once you do it becomes a rather effective way of keeping track of where in a series a particular episode fits. Sehvekah 08:21, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Hodges Article

The article for David Hodges links to the article on the keyboardist for Evanesence Pinkfloydfan 04:12, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

new section

i added a controversy section, what do you think? anything to add?

Move General CSI or Possible Merge

I think the content non-specific to any particular CSI show (criticisms, controversy, style) could go to a seperate page. If not all of them, perhaps just criticisms could goto CSI Effect. Albert109 22:25, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

CSI Fallacies

I'm interested in how people view CSI's "pushing" of science and use of questionable (or more accurately - not real) scientific methods. I cite three cases:

A victim has been stabbed to death with a knife. In the medical lab, in order to reconstruct the murder weapon, clay (or some type of material) is poured into the wound. It sets and when removed, wallah! A perfect mould in the shape of the knife which caused the wound.
A clay pot in the episode "Committed". Crafted while two people were having an argument. Of course, the marks on the pot were vibrating to the argument. When the clay pot is analysed, they shoot a laser at it and get a sound back. Behold! It's the argument being played back - reproduced from the bumps and grooves made in the pot during the argument.
Any episode which ever involves image enhancement. The classic case is zooming in on an image - "enhancing" it to the pint where a crisp clea image is on screen. CSI: New York took this one step further I believe when they used it in a case of somebody's eye. We zoom right in and enhance the eye perfectly "There's a reflection there, can you enhance that?" and we do. Once again, through the magic of fakey science, we have a clue. The reflection off of someone's enhanced eye.

Are there other cases where CSI simply makes stuff up or takes methods so far to the extreme in order to get clue's that the show loses its credibility? I think it's well worth mentioning as part of the article.

Well, whenever I've seen forensic teams on TV newscasts and so on, they wear jumpsuits, booties, gloves and showercaps so that they won't mess up the evidence. I find it ridiculous when one of the female characters, with all that hair exclaims "I've found a hair!". Sure, lady. It's probably your own. :D Vince In Milan 13:00, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

PLEASE don't use "wallah"! The correct word is VOILA. Timrem

It's a TV show. Most people don't stay up at night worrying about how accurate the show is.-Raven 00:39, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the terminal velocity of a falling human body: The episode states "9.8 meters per second." The terminal velocity article says that a "skydiver in a normal free-fall position with a closed parachute is about 195 km/h (120 Mph)" That converts to about 53.6 m\s, correct?

Also, how long would it take the body to reach terminal velocity? It certainly wouldn't begin at the moment of the fall. Would it reach tv at 6 stories? PrometheusX303 21:57, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

9.8m/s^2 is the acceleration due to gravity, how fast you accelerate in free fall. I don't know the deacceleration due to wind resistance (Terminal velocity occurs when the deacceleration due to wind resistance equals the acceleration due to gravity) but in free fall it would take about five and a half seconds(53.6/9.8).--XirSponge 04:24, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I feel the critism section is too large and certainly far too promenant. I think it shouldn't be broken down so distinctly on the contents section nor should it come so high on the list. This is a listing on CSI not a listing on the critisim of it.--AlanD 22:59, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

maybe the criticism section should be in a separate article, referenced from here? It's not inconceivable that someone might come to wikipedia to investigate a questionable point raised on the show. Jeh 09:28, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the "it's so dark!" point, I have to say... when I drop a contact lens in the bathroom, the quickest way to find it is to turn the lights out and use a flashlight, with the beam parallel to the "suspect" surface. The light refracts through the lens and lights it up, my eyes aren't distracted by all the peripheral vision, plus anything on the surface will cast an obvious shadow. And I see all kinds of other stuff, like hairs, that are normally unnotoceable. So the principle isn't wrong, just the extent to which it's used on the show. :) Jeh 09:28, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure. Cause they use it EVERYWHERE! The lab is dark, the morgue is dark... PrometheusX303 13:52, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually according to police officers and crime scene specialists many really do turn the lights on to look at the scence. In CSI the lights are probably kept off to set a dark mood for the scene. Symmetric Chaos 13:23, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

The show is categorised in the "science fiction" genre, and therefore lots of the criticism would not apply. The Criticism section needs to reflect that. --Kvasir 06:56, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Why is the fact that cars will protect you from lightining listed as a fallacy? A car does, in fact, make an excellent insulator and does not transmit electricity to a body inside. A car is not full proof, as lightining bolts are immense sources of energy, but a car does provide protection. Scheater5 23:35, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that if, as mentioned, some fallacy was "corrected by Grissom", it shouldn't even be mentioned. A character on the show had a false notion of what was going on. The character made a mistake, not the writers. I won't remove anything because I don't know which one they are talking about, but it seems pretty retarded to mention it as a mistake.70.81.154.95 07:39, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

That the car will protect you (somewhat) is not in question. But the show claimed that it would protect you because of the rubber tires. That's incorrect; a lightning bolt that jumps from cloud to car won't have much trouble with another few inches from car to ground. Reality is that the car offers some protection, NOT because it is an "excellent insulator," but because its body is an excellent conductor. As such it forms a (nearly) equipotential shell around the occupants. Therefore, even if you are inside a car when the car is hit by lightning, even if you touch two different parts of the interior of the metal body, no current will pass through you. At least, that would be true if the car body offered utterly no resistance. In practice, what with a lightning bolt being on the order of a million amps or so, a resistance of just 1/100 of an ohm will give you a voltage drop of 10,000 volts, which is considerable. (And please, I don't want to hear the old "it's not the voltage that is deadly, it is the current" saw. There's plenty of both in this situation to be deadly. Jeh 08:14, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

so many things are wrong with the show. SWAT teams assemble wrong, crime scene INVESTIGATORS are storming into building guns drawn (in real life most csi dont carry guns because they are extra weight) the take downs are all wrong, dna tests take 5 minutes not days, they find evidence so impossible that they show does not do a good job. anyone that has any police/millitary expreiance can pick out all the errors very quickly

This above comment was apparently made by 75.4.172.180, just editing this to reflect that. --85.197.239.159 00:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

CSI makes criminals smarter?

Another concern with CSI is not its factual flaws, but conversely, the raised awareness of forensic science — to the point of paranoia — that it encourages amongst criminals. FBI agents and police detectives have expressed distress that CSI is educating criminals in how to leave a "squeaky clean" crime scene. In shootings, shell casings are more frequently being removed from the scene of the crime; stabbings and other crimes often leave no fingerprints; and many criminals have found ways to be generally more stealthy at what they do.

I'd like to see some research on this one. Most of what you see on CSI has been public, common knowledge for years. PrometheusX303 13:55, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

True and there is also a semi humorus 'scientific' law that states something to the efect that the more a person tries to remove evidence the more that will be left behind. Symmetric Chaos 13:25, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Shows like The New Detectives and Cold Case( I think that's the name of it) actually go more in depth when discussing forensice techniques. PrometheusX303 13:40, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Can We Add This To All The CSI's

A section called unsolved cases were you post up the cases that csi had not solved or continuse like the paul miller case. It will begin with which episode the case began in and with episodes contiune that case and also when was it solved, and we can add it to the all the csi shows so i just want permission to do that or if you had ideas to make it better. --LeafGreen Ranger 21:59, 14 April 2006 (BST)

Sounds like a good idea to me. Prometheus^-X303- 21:13, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a bunch of more fancruft to clutter up the article to me. 75.2.38.48 23:51, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Category:Actors and actresses appearing on CSI

A category related to this article, Category:Actors and actresses appearing on CSI, was nominated for renaming. The debate ended with a consensus to delete the category. I raised the matter on Wikipedia:Deletion review as the category was never tagged for deletion. It would be good to get opinions from people actually interested in CSI. Tim! 14:00, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Trivia section of this article is of poor quality, to say the least.

I don't think I need to expand upon anything further from the title of my message here. I just spent 10 minutes reading through and correcting a number of moronic mistakes in the trivia section, where someone had italicised the names of David Bowie and William S. Burroughs, not to mention tried to pass off "comicbook" and "comicbooks" as if they are actual words. The level of ridiculousness for that kind of stupidity to slip by those editors who take this article seriously and treat it as a viable source of information regarding this show is mind boggling.

The entire section itself is poorly organised. An episode-by-episode breakdown of things like that belongs in a guide on TV.com and not in any type of encyclopedia. 75.2.38.48 23:50, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

And there's way too much trivia in general. It seems a bunch of people just decided to add their favorite scenes into the trivia section. It needs quite a bit of trimming. --Optichan 18:59, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. Recently I cleaned out the trivia section on [[House (TV}]] and moved a bunch of overly detailed info to the show's list of episodes. Trivia sections are inherently a sign of poor writing. If the only way you can fit something into an article is to cram it under the heading of trivia, it either does not belong there (it might fit better in a different section or article), or is too trivial to be included in the encyclopaedia at all. Johnleemk | Talk 09:58, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I can somewhat understand the episode-based trivia (although I agree the points would be more appropriate in an episode-by-episode listing), but information about who publishes the comic book, that it is the highest-watched show in the Netherlands, information about the actors having worked together on previous pilots or series, characters "making out" in unaired scenes, and factual inaccuracies from the show (that could likely be its own Wiki entry) all seem superfluous. SINsApple 02:02, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I moved a few episode-based trivia to their own article, where the episode already had an article. Suggest all the remaining episode based trivia items be removed. --Oscarthecat 06:04, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

C.S.I should redirect here.

99.99% of the people putting in C.S.I will be looking for this and not the Order of the Star of India......

Pure inuyasha 21:48, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Clues of Season 6 finale

These are the clues I found from the website:

Jim is dead (Clue: dead jim, with "DEAD" sign)(as seen in "bang-bang")
Something about Sara and Grissom? They turned their head to each other, and in "Time of your Death" it was hinted their some romance involved. Also, grissom's right hand turned, while before turned can see all his finger...perhaps hiding a ring from view?
Nice is gonna get married (that wedding ring on his right hand ring finger)
one of the casino "disappeared" (may be Lucky Dragon, indicating the crime will occur there)

Spoiler for Season 6

"In the Season 6 episode "Bang-Bang", Jim Brass was shot during a hostage situation by a through-and-through bullet through his right chest. The summary of the Season 6 finale "Way To Go" indicates that the wound, while not immediatly fatal, still put him in a critical condition." Thanks! As this hasn't aired yet why isn't this spoiler tagged? Or why is this information included AT ALL?

Controversy : anti-drugs message?

The only area of controversy I've come across is the "product-placement" morality, mainly anti-drugs, particularly in the early episodes. I'd have thought that was worth mentioning. An issue shared with CSI Miami. From the other side, in political terms, there also seems to be a conservative suspicion of treatment of family morality, particularly abortion.

Hakluyt bean 13:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Further re "product-placement" I (think I) can see it but I can't see it referenced anywhere. However if anyone can it could be a useful addition to "controversy". It's this kind of thing btw: "Prime Time Propaganda" and also here: Office of National Drug Control Policy

Hakluyt bean 13:10, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

"CSI: Dunnys Office"

Is this genuine? I looked at that image, and it appears awfully fake... That, and the entire premise of the show seems rediculous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.232.184.49 (talk • contribs)

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