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I was a huge CSI fan in season one, then school commitments kept me from it for the next two years, and I forgot about it last year. I'm back into season 4, though.
I've been wondering why the show is such a ratings juggernaught, and I think there's a few answers.
The least interesting answers are the most obvious - the cool tech stuff and the gore. We all like the various gadgets and replays of how the victim's body was traumatized.
But there's more important stuff going on. I think what really endears this show to its audience is the family-type interplay between the characters. Catherine Willows is the mother. Brown, Stokes & Sidle are the teenagers, and Greg is the bratty little kid.
But it all revolves around Grissom. Age wise, he is paired with the wife/mother figure, Catherine. He is the gruff, distant authority figure. He can be a hardass; he's the disciplinary figure. He offers sage advice, and the team - especially the younger members - clearly want to impress and please him.
Grissom is an idealized father figure in one important way - he can be pleased, and he can admit when he's wrong.
How many people watch CSI, recognize Grissom as human enough to be their father, yet with many of their father's faults removed?
This is partly why I don't think the spin offs will work as well - I've only watched them sparingly, and they lack the family element. Once the gore and tech wear out, all they'll have left is the other important factor they share with the original.
Dead nekkid women. My my, but this show loves to play with the connection between death and the erotic. How often are women in bikinis or lingerie found with their limbs spread, or in a come-hither pose? Never contorted in pain. They look like they're sleeping after good sex.
I don't think other cop shows have the same reliance on eroticising death, with the posssible exception of Law & Order: SVU. LO:SVU is different, though; CSI's necrophilia is subtle, not played for shock; it's not overtly violent - just sexy.
Hell, Sara Sidle & Grissom even have an Electra complex going on! |
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