'C.S.I.' Clicks With Its Viewers
FRAZIER MOORE, AP Television Writer
Tuesday October 23 2:40
PM ET
NEW YORK (AP) - To paraphrase the Bard, some TV series are born
great, while some have greatness thrust upon them.
And then there's ``C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation,'' which can
lay
claim to both a great idea and (especially thrust upon it in
recent
weeks) even greater timing.
Make no mistake, this isn't Shakespeare. ``C.S.I.'' is a have-it-both-
ways whodunit that balances a high-tech, glossy style with retro
melodrama. Cool logic co-exists with graphic flashes of
brutality,
body parts and gore.
It's goofy yet smart, earnest yet campy, oddly instructive yet
utterly escapist. All in all, a pretty neat trick and fun to
watch.
(It airs Thursday at 9 p.m. EDT on CBS.) When ``C.S.I.''
premiered a
year ago, lacking buzz from industry insiders, it immediately
clicked
with viewers. ``C.S.I.'' reigned as last season's surprise hit.
Then came Sept. 11. In an instant, many TV shows (notably a wave
of
cloak-and-dagger dramas for 2001-02 including ``The Agency'' and
``Alias'') became relics from an obsolete Zeitgeist. Drama too
fanciful or, conversely, too true to life seemed out of step with
the
public's sudden sorrows and anxieties.
``C.S.I.,'' on the other hand, has gained an even surer grip on
its
audience just by staying the course. (In the early weeks of its
second season, it's ranked sixth among TV households.)
Fortunately, staying the course is the gospel of senior forensic
sleuth Gil Grissom, who heads what he calls ``the nerd squad''
within
the Las Vegas Criminalistics Bureau.
Under his command, the crime scene investigators keep a clinical
detachment from evil and evil-doers. Each crime is a puzzle
demanding
a solution. In that ruminative fashion, savagery is confronted.
But
it's never answered in kind.
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the high road traveled by Grissom's
team gives the series added impact.
But there's another thing about ``C.S.I.'' that recent events
have
reaffirmed. It's Grissom's faith in what the rest of us now
desperately want to believe: that truth - absolute, inarguable
truth -
awaits those who pursue it with keen-eyed devotion.
On, ``C.S.I.,'' a college girl has vanished from her dorm room.
Foul
play? A construction worker takes a tumble off a high-rise.
Suicide
or murder? An apparent hit-and-run victim was already dead before
getting run over. Who killed him and why?
Forget personalities, ambitions and assumptions, Grissom tells
his
colleagues. ``These things will only confuse you. Concentrate on
what
cannot lie: the evidence.''
Hard evidence - blood spatter, hair fibers, body decay,
fingerprints -
paves the way to enlightenment. And what fuels the trip? Reason.
``Our job,'' says Grissom, a mystic conjuring objective truth,
``is
to think.''
In a world of relative values and crippling nuance, as we wonder
not
just what the answer is, but whether an answer can even be had,
Grissom strikes a weekly a blow for Rational Man.
Think hard enough, he argues, and we will prevail! Since Sept. 11,
what more reassuring game plan could any viewer wish for?
Played by William Petersen, Grissom is an intriguing blend of
champion and odd duck.
He has a certain blunt charm and morbid wit (``So, Watson, the
game's
afoot,'' he quips to an associate on finding a severed leg). In
his
lab or at a crime scene, he stares death in the face - a face
sometimes well along in decomposing - with calm fascination.
Meanwhile, he displays what he readily admits: He isn't good with
people. Live ones, anyway. During office reminiscences about high
school, a co-worker asks him, ``What were you - a jock or a
brain?''
``A ghost,'' Grissom replies evenly.
Despite his loner status, Grissom on the job is effectively a
family
man. He is the unyielding patriarch to a brood of young
investigators
(played by Gary Dourdan, George Eads and Jorja Fox), while
seasoned
Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger) is the sexy, no-nonsense
mom.
They work the graveyard shift, a portentous time of day in Las
Vegas
when it's either too bright or too dark, too noisy or too quiet.
Grissom and his team provide the fitting counter-force in a town
legendary for its free-floating artiface, where what passes for
truth
is keno and Wayne Newton.
Here in Vegas, as everywhere, the human race is an enigma. But
what
humans do, for better or worse, expresses itself in plain sight
if
you look. Or so Grissom says. Watch ``C.S.I.'' and see how.
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