I started watching last nights new CSI series with no expectations. I was curious at most, but didn’t spend any time pre thinking about it. I just turned it on and watched the first scene. A child abduction.
The first thing I noticed was the father of the child sleeps in his glasses. I even paused and rewound to establish he really was asleep. Weird, I thought. Do people actually do that?
Next we see the baby missing, first on the bedroom babycam, which was emitting faint voices, and then in reality. Typical mother scream of panic and then a zoom shot of the babycam making those same noises, which traditionally doesn’t happen so much anymore. In the old days, baby monitors used to pick up cordless phone conversations regularly, but not for a decade or so.
On the next scene, we see the lead actress acting quite tough, steal the case from the experts on major crime and kidnapping, justifying this isn’t best served by the experience retrieval team, but instead, her CYBER division which seems to be so new, one guy starts his position in the next scene, and nobody in the police department has even heard of them. I suppose a suspension of belief is required in all CSI series. The guy who traces the body and takes fingerprints really inst the same one interviewing suspects and talking to witnesses.
So the fact the the investigation is lead by the team that takes a webcam feed should not surprise me. All of this, because the webcam was transmitting foreign voices.
This crime must be webcam related.
Despite this logic flaw, I will continue to watch the rest of the show. I know in my heart, it will get much worse. They have not even played the opening credits yet, and I’m quite excited to see if it will be a song by the Who.
Unpause
Oh good. They did use The Who. Nice choice. This pleases me.
The team they put together is as demographically calculated as a boy band, trying to fit all the holes of fan types. The fat guys, cute girls, black criminals and the had some guy. There are three recognizable faces. I’m not certain I’ll accept Patrica Arcettes non mother attitude, but we’ll see if the rest of the show turns me off.
The story continues in CSI style, twisting the plot around from simple to complex, and the CYBER team perform fairly regular tech tasks like tracing phones, using GPS and finding SD memory cards with video of the crime, now detected as a babycam live auction for the missing baby. Essentially the team is doing the exact same stuff as any other mystery show, except the techs are the leads, rather than a hand off team usually off camera.
Unpause.
Every show on TV these days bends the future a little, but I did find the scene where they listen to the auction audio after one of the techs flips a switch and says; all languages now translated and the sound is of the same loud, crowded yelling auction, only with the foreigners now shouting in accented English rather than German, Arabic, and Chinese. That’s more sophisticated than Star Trek translator.
I don’t know that Google will ever get to that point. Translation in their own voice, real time. I think not, but again, I’m still watching.
Unpause
The next miracle they perform attempts to teach us game consoles keep track of every user, but only so they can trap petofiles. How happy I am to hear this, covering up any of the other emotions I may have when I accept every device is hackable. This show could destroy the trust of America in the first episode. It’s more terrifying in some ways than a chainsaw horror film.
If we dismiss the technology in this show as future based science fiction, the premise is almost silly. If we believe everything in this show is possible, it’s scary. I’m torn.
The show ends with a lot of traditional first episode morals and recaps, and even a parents basement joke. We see her deep life long obsession that will play out in serial storyline eventually as The Who plays them out.
A well produced CSI show that could go long, if accepted. I’m not sure I like the cast enough to keep in my weekly rotation, but I’ll watch next week.
