November 25th, 2004
CSI: Omaha
Let me cast this for you: Leading the crime investigation unit is a taciturn, social-skill-less though brilliant, crusader-for-justice joli-laid white guy. Though his age may vary, his basic looks and personality never do. He’s not model handsome but he’s interesting looking (anyway, we all know women aren’t too picky, it’s power and danger not looks that attracts us and this guy’s got the strong silent type thing goin’ on). He’s typically emotionally impaired; his female subordinates have to interpret other people’s emotions for him. He’s the quintessential good guy–nothing gets him more upset and depressed than when the bad guy gets away, and he’s never more self-righteous than when he’s got the goods on the slimy perp. If you’re still not getting it, think Edward James Olmos if he weren’t so “ethnic,” or Tommy Lee Jones, though he’s looking a bit tired around the edges and I’m not sure he could handle the stress.
Second-in-command to the big guy–just in case you were thinking CSI’s producers thought women weren’t competent–is a tall gorgeous model-thin woman with long gorgeous hair. She’s probably white also, though in the case of CSI: Miami, Alex the medical examiner fills this bill, along with Callie the CSI and Yelena the sister-in-law and suggested love interest. Omaha’s no Miami, though, so it’s unlikely that kind of diversity-in-the-name-of-exotic-sexiness would be tolerated. (Interestingly, CSI in Las Vegas, the original show, deviates most from this formula, since even though Marg Helgenberger is drop-dead gorgeous, she’s no model type, and Sara the CSI, sort of a nerdy-bookworm-girl and girl-next-door combination, is arguably the most interesting character on the three shows.)
Rounding out the cast we have the small-name relatively unknown beefcake or T&A, depending. These roles are where the network tries to convince us the shows are really different, that they really do care about diversity–from Greg, the quirky nerdy white lab tech in Las Vegas to the young male Hispanic CSIs in Miami to the interestingly-accented blond lab tech and young black ME of CSI: New York. However, these secondary characters are meant to camouflage the fact that the result of this recipe for success becomes blander with each iteration.
Just like the plots–oh, here’s a new one, let’s murder some thin young white woman, preferably in some context replete with sexual overtones, recreate her violent death throughout the show with heart-pounding adrenaline-surging flashback vignettes while we dissect her dead body and display her bloody parts. Last night’s CSI: NY episode takes the cake, really; the ME waves the dead woman’s gory occipital bone and spinal column around the autopsy room while we see, not once, but twice, a shot of her boyfriend kissing her on the lips as she lies dead on the church lawn. Necrophilia much? Who needs slasher films when we’ve got primetime CSI three nights a week? And how fascinating that an hour-long show can deal with the murder of an unmarried pregnant devout Catholic without ever once mentioning the word “abortion”! You have to hand it to TV writers and producers, really, because they do such a fabulous job of pandering to the viewers’ worst instincts while never mentioning anything that might actually make us think.
