CSI-ence

"CSI" is great: a whodunit mystery, an almost-always satisfactory conclusion, lots of educational tid-bits about how to commit the perfect crime, etc. But there are enough downfalls in the shows to make me want to stop watching. If only it weren't for the story arcs. Hmm.

"CSI", and it's spin-offs, are far from perfect. The original "CSI" is boring: it's in Vegas, everything is about gambling, prostitution, blah blah blah. Give me something original. "CSI: Miami" does that, but the cast is horrific: Horatio is just plain strange and I think that they hired high school drop-outs for the rest because the acting is sophomoric, ranging wooden performances to over-the-top hotshot. "CSI: NY" is my favorite at the moment. New York is a wonderful place for a cop drama: the personality of the city gives the show all the strangeness of Vegas while keeping it grounded enough not to veer off to the classic "furry convention" of the original. But all is not perfect with "NY": the characters aren't as good as "CSI". Oh, they're more interesting and dimensional than Miami, but that's not saying much. Gary Sinise is deliciously subtle as lead detective, but passionate about his job when the situation warrants it. I'm really surprised that "NY" is the only show of the three that hasn't been nominated for an Emmy.

The rest of the shows' more glaring faults aside, I have a problem with the science they present every week. Here are some curious mistakes I've noticed in the last two episodes of "CSI: NY":

• Gary Sinise' character actually suggested that the victim got into a locked apartment by using a credit card. On a deadbolt.
  
• A dead woman was shown to bleed. Dead people don't bleed!
• An actor shoots someone at point-blank range with a blank gun and is surprised at the outcome.

Of course, these are not the most glaring or the biggest mistakes "CSI" serves up on a weekly basis, just the recent ones, taken from two consecutive episodes of "CSI:NY". All three shows are littered with "minor" inaccuracies, the most common of which are the length of time it takes to run a specific test and the magical all-encompassing police databases. They have a wig database, for crying out loud!