'CSI' outshines stars
December 6, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
Jorja Fox fans surely will be bummed when "CSI" returns with a new episode tonight. Fox left the show a few weeks ago, and she took away her character, Sara Sidle. But don't expect "CSI" to suffer much because, duh, the true star of America's No. 1 drama is its sci-fi special effects.
"CSI's" graphical graffiti is so whiz-bam cool, its success as pop iconography reminds me of the "Simpsons" episode where Homer goes to space and thinks he'll be a hero for saving a space shuttle. But instead, the metal rod he uses to keep the shuttle door shut becomes the hero, as Time magazine proclaims, "In Rod We Trust."
CSI" is just like that. Sure, the detectives are wily, but where would they be without machines that analyze hair, fiber, bullets, wood, blood and all that junk? Where would they be without super-cool and offbeat closeups of dying people, and camera angles that spin in slow motion around bodies falling from windows?
Maybe William Petersen thinks he's the star, but his Grissom barely does much anymore other than sit at a desk, reading papers, with eyeglasses tipped at the end of his nose. Marg Helgenberger doesn't get a ton of face time as Catherine.
And Fox -- who was named the 80th sexiest woman in the world by Stuff magazine in 2003 -- was great in her best moments. But she too was just a cog in the wheel of an ensemble show that (like "Law & Order") barely notices its detectives have personal lives, including Sara's long affair with Grissom.
So the eye-catching look of "CSI" gets all the attention and deserves its acclaim. But what tickles me most is what the series often sounds like: the Discovery Channel.
If you saw the episode "A La Cart" this season, you were told by a restaurateur, who was standing at the scene of a crime:
"The tongue understands four major taste groups -- salty, sweet, sour, bitter -- and has over 10,000 taste buds, each with a direct connection to the pleasure center of the brain, triggering endorphins. The anticipation and release of eating good food is chemically quite similar to getting high on drugs."
This had nothing to do with the case at hand. Clearly, the writers (now on strike) just thought it was cool. I bet, though, this is the way many viewers learn smidgens of knowledge on TV now -- nugget by graphically enhanced science nugget.
But certainly, much of the appeal comes from that fancy artwork, which looks better than it ever has. While that chef lectured about taste buds, you saw a sleek montage: a woman libidinously lipping down on food, a closeup of a graphically enhanced tongue and a virtual tour of how brain endorphins shoot through the human body.
This expensive style is taken for granted, since it's changed the style of the TV procedural. But it's really quite extraordinary. Several weeks ago, a guy was decapitated while racing a go-cart behind an 18-wheeler on a road. But you didn't see the decapitation.
Instead, the scene opened with a head in a helmet bouncing down the road, as the camera perspective swirled around it and the "Blue Danube" waltz toyed to the rhythm of the bounces.
This was played neither for drama nor for comedy. It was just a dash of commercial art, a form of art that at top form, like this, defends the capitalization of art.
Where "CSI" goes dumb is in the easy confessions cops get out of criminals. And the personal stories of detectives are too rare to give the show much depth.
That said, Sara's departure brought about a sweet scene where Fox portrayed quiet despair. When she finally split the Las Vegas cop shop, Fox commanded long and lovely little scenes for Sara to just be, to just sit, to deteriorate on camera.
When "CSI" seesaws between these extravagant visuals and subtle personal moments, I'm reminded of filmmaker Sam Raimi's quote that he intended for "Spider-Man 2" to be part blockbuster and part indie film. "CSI" achieves that, except when it doesn't, and then it becomes rote.
Where "CSI" loses me is with the repetitive, personality-free nuts and bolts of its howdunits. But while some other shows don't deserve top ratings ("Grey's Anatomy," "Private Practice"), "CSI" remains a worthy hour in its eighth year." It's three parts howdunit, two parts avant-garde cinema and one part Discovery dork. It is the mise-en-scene of massacre and mascara.
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
Jorja Fox fans surely will be bummed when "CSI" returns with a new episode tonight. Fox left the show a few weeks ago, and she took away her character, Sara Sidle. But don't expect "CSI" to suffer much because, duh, the true star of America's No. 1 drama is its sci-fi special effects.
"CSI's" graphical graffiti is so whiz-bam cool, its success as pop iconography reminds me of the "Simpsons" episode where Homer goes to space and thinks he'll be a hero for saving a space shuttle. But instead, the metal rod he uses to keep the shuttle door shut becomes the hero, as Time magazine proclaims, "In Rod We Trust."
CSI" is just like that. Sure, the detectives are wily, but where would they be without machines that analyze hair, fiber, bullets, wood, blood and all that junk? Where would they be without super-cool and offbeat closeups of dying people, and camera angles that spin in slow motion around bodies falling from windows?
Maybe William Petersen thinks he's the star, but his Grissom barely does much anymore other than sit at a desk, reading papers, with eyeglasses tipped at the end of his nose. Marg Helgenberger doesn't get a ton of face time as Catherine.
And Fox -- who was named the 80th sexiest woman in the world by Stuff magazine in 2003 -- was great in her best moments. But she too was just a cog in the wheel of an ensemble show that (like "Law & Order") barely notices its detectives have personal lives, including Sara's long affair with Grissom.
So the eye-catching look of "CSI" gets all the attention and deserves its acclaim. But what tickles me most is what the series often sounds like: the Discovery Channel.
If you saw the episode "A La Cart" this season, you were told by a restaurateur, who was standing at the scene of a crime:
"The tongue understands four major taste groups -- salty, sweet, sour, bitter -- and has over 10,000 taste buds, each with a direct connection to the pleasure center of the brain, triggering endorphins. The anticipation and release of eating good food is chemically quite similar to getting high on drugs."
This had nothing to do with the case at hand. Clearly, the writers (now on strike) just thought it was cool. I bet, though, this is the way many viewers learn smidgens of knowledge on TV now -- nugget by graphically enhanced science nugget.
But certainly, much of the appeal comes from that fancy artwork, which looks better than it ever has. While that chef lectured about taste buds, you saw a sleek montage: a woman libidinously lipping down on food, a closeup of a graphically enhanced tongue and a virtual tour of how brain endorphins shoot through the human body.
This expensive style is taken for granted, since it's changed the style of the TV procedural. But it's really quite extraordinary. Several weeks ago, a guy was decapitated while racing a go-cart behind an 18-wheeler on a road. But you didn't see the decapitation.
Instead, the scene opened with a head in a helmet bouncing down the road, as the camera perspective swirled around it and the "Blue Danube" waltz toyed to the rhythm of the bounces.
This was played neither for drama nor for comedy. It was just a dash of commercial art, a form of art that at top form, like this, defends the capitalization of art.
Where "CSI" goes dumb is in the easy confessions cops get out of criminals. And the personal stories of detectives are too rare to give the show much depth.
That said, Sara's departure brought about a sweet scene where Fox portrayed quiet despair. When she finally split the Las Vegas cop shop, Fox commanded long and lovely little scenes for Sara to just be, to just sit, to deteriorate on camera.
When "CSI" seesaws between these extravagant visuals and subtle personal moments, I'm reminded of filmmaker Sam Raimi's quote that he intended for "Spider-Man 2" to be part blockbuster and part indie film. "CSI" achieves that, except when it doesn't, and then it becomes rote.
Where "CSI" loses me is with the repetitive, personality-free nuts and bolts of its howdunits. But while some other shows don't deserve top ratings ("Grey's Anatomy," "Private Practice"), "CSI" remains a worthy hour in its eighth year." It's three parts howdunit, two parts avant-garde cinema and one part Discovery dork. It is the mise-en-scene of massacre and mascara.
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