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Yep, unless my memory’s very duff, Brooker used to write and draw ‘Orson Cart – He Comes Apart’. Harmless stuff, as I recall.
The appeal of CSI, Boboss ? Good question – flashy special effecty bits aside, it should really be pretty rubbish, as it’s an obvious-ish combo of the two old TV staples of medical and police dramas. For some reason, though, I think the original CSI has something about it (I don’t care for the spinoffs, as they seem to have ‘analogues’ of most of the Vegas-based original’s characters in, from what I’ve seen; and Caruso seems rather hammy for my money).
I think it could well be the way in which the scripts and cast work together; the scripts are often fairly complicated and can veer off in unexpected directions, and also spend an impressively slight amount of time dealing with the character’s home lives. There’s none of the usual ‘good at cracking the case, social life a mess’ stuff – we know that a couple of the characters have had some kind of relationship, though we don’t know the details, we know that one of them had a gambling problem, though that’s mainly offscreen, and one is raising a child on her own as well as working long hours, though again that’s rarely seen. It’s all about showing them cracking the case, which (when so many programmes become about the characters and not the stories after a series or two), is a pleasant change.
And I’d single out William Peterson’s acting for note as well – whilst his Will Graham in ‘Manhunter’ was clearly very twitchy on the surface and clever underneath, his Gus Grissom in CSI is very collected, like Sherlock Holmes with a microscope. Very calm, and thoughtful, which is quite an antidote to a lot of TV characters, particularly in the cops-n-robbers genre.
Which is, ultimately, all CSI is – but the exposition of medical stuff is so smoothly done, that it all passes rather quickly and enjoyably. Worth a go, I feel, if you haven’t seen it, but as I say, really it’s just a cop show, albeit a well-done one. |
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