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Disappointing shows

TV is dumbing itself down. Still. For years.

I can accept dumb shows. Some of the things I watch and enjoy I'm sure have detractors. I only get angry when a show brags about how well they did things, how much attention to detail they got. Funny how you never hear objective experts say the same things about those same shows. CSI currently tops my list for hypocritical excellence.

There's a reason I drifted away from network television: LCD. Pandering to the lowest common denominator has "dumb-ified" shows to the point where I gnash my teeth watching them. I caught an episode of CSI about some guy who'd died in a bathtub of hot water and had laid there for a week, happily turning into something disgusting. They must has spent a lot on the prop, since it was totally disgusting and they showed it A LOT! What really yanked my chain was the kind of "Baywatch" kind of stupidity in a show that constantly and loudly brags about their uncanny accuracy. Uncanny is right! *Basic* crime scene procedure violations ("Hey, I found a clue. I'll just pick it up and hold it up to the camera for *drahma*!"). Contrived (like, impossible) clues based on physical situations that would have to occur in the controlled conditions of a lab to occur; some outright impossible effects/conditions done for dramatic effect to snag the viewer; lots of plain ol' stupid. Like cops tough-sassing their captains (said cop looked like Dwight).

Back to the nasty body: the worst offense of all: they had the two "hot chick" investigators looking into this one. They're wearing Bay Watch tank tops and tight pants. OK...dumb and pander-y, but almost believable if you're a functional retard. What steamed my whistle was that they are moving the body and looking through that bathtub full of decomposed bloat with NO MASKS ON! C'mon! That place had to be tens kinds of stink. The whole neighborhood would have been wearing respirators or gone! The two hotties aren't even giving this the reaction that emptying a backed-up toilet would have gotten! They're just "La-dee-dah!" with witty chit-chat and cheerful expressions. *GNRRGH!*

Basic cable is no better-- it just offers different flavors of stupid and the occasional diamond. I watched an episode of "Animal X". What a load of offal! I'm told that the last season was far better, more straight-forward animal forensics. The new format has some old geezer who is shown glowing with some unholy blue aura around him. He over-acts in a way that is meant to dramatize every non-event; instead he gives the show the tone of a bad horror-show host. The investigations were shallow and uninteresting (this was about the "Beast of Gevauden", which should have been great!). They must have taken the budget for re-creating scenes and used it for the unholy aura, since the scenes looked like they shot 'em at a Ren Fair with acting to match. And I'm sure that the change in formats was to boost ratings-- LCD again.

On the other hand, I've only recently discovered (thank you, Discovery Channel and TIVO!) "Myth Busters"! Definitely a diamond! The show is creative, intriguing and just *fun*! They don't waste time with flashy, candy graphics or "celebrity" hosts: they just bust/prove urban myths! Usually involving something blowing up or a painful recreation. Fun!

And...I'll admit that what I saw of the dragon show on Animal Planet was much better than I had anticipated: kind of fun, actually. You could almost watch that after the "Walking with Dinosaurs" shows and have it seamlessly blend in. Now if they could only do one like this about werewolves...!

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I think they were trying to make you hallucinate and think the guy hosting Animal X was Arthur C. Clarke, who used to host some of those whacky investigation shows. The one on the thylacine wasn't that bad. Other than creepy glowy man. And didn't Animal X used to be a half hour show?

This is exactly the gripe I've been having with CSI:NY.
All the female techs on that show have nice long well managed hair. Yet in the lab, but it's never tied back. Hey look, hair follicle, it must be evidence. (duh).

For network prime time fare, CSI (IMHO) is better than average, but the bar is pretty low to begin with.

And heck yeah, Mythbusters is great. They've even had a show where they go back and redo some of their demos in response to viewer mail and other after-the-fact info (ref: chicken gun).

As for another diamond in the rough, check out PBS for the series "History Detectives" (http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/). The show has a group of historians who go to people homes to look at, discuss, and discover the truth about a certain object's origins. It's refreshing to see a show where they actually go into the local newspaper archives to dig into the old files.

Wow...something good on PBS! I'll try to check it out.

Like cops tough-sassing their captains (said cop looked like Dwight).

Well........remember Dwight wasn't a cop very long.

Basic cable is no better-- it just offers different flavors of stupid and the occasional diamond. I watched an episode of "Animal X". What a load of offal!

I got the same read on that one - someone trying to make something seem dramatic when it was anything but.

On the other hand, I've only recently discovered (thank you, Discovery Channel and TIVO!) "Myth Busters"! Definitely a diamond!

I watched this - and will continue to do so. I learned some useful stuff on this past show. If that big CO2 fire extinguisher next to the main computer desk is ever empty you will know what I used it for.

Now I'm curious about the CO₂ fire extinguisher...

I wasn't saying that you'd talk back, just that he had sort of your looks and very much that patent *glare* of yours. The way he was speaking to a superior was more like a sargent dressing down a cadet. And the same officer later publicly threatens the lead CSI guy! C'mon!

[For Westly] CO2 extinguisher+warm beer=cold beer < 3 minutes.

To be honest, I think I overhyped myself for the Dragons show. I was all excited but felt very let down after watching it. Nice graphics, but... just didn't do it for me. Plus, they killed sheep on that show, which immediately drops the ratings :) I should've just switched over to the Jeff Foxworthy Roast ;)

I actually enjoy CSI. Like everything on television.. its for ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY. I could make a huge list of the scientific inaccuracies or half truths from the show, or how they glorify a certain procedure or "dumb down" others.. but I remember its for ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY!!!

Would *anyone* watch CSI if the *real* drudgery work of forensic science was shown *accurately*? No.. trust me, pouring, loading and running a DNA agarose gel is the most BORING lab procedure in biology. Frozen blood droplets from an aerosol? COOOOOL!

Contrary to this, I find Mythbusters often inaccurate. Their methods are for entertainment purposes only, but come on.. do you *really* think their approach is scientific? Heh.. not a chance. But damn, is it alot of fun to watch!

I forget who originally coined the phrase, but I think it was a past colleague of mine I heard it from first:

"Science is alot of very boring and repetitive things done very carefully"

Such a thing does not entertaining drama make!

I'm all for cheezy entertainment: I just hate shows that self-promote about their "accuracy" and research. As for whether people would watch it if it were more boringly accurate-- yes, if they got better writers! There are shows that do that well without grandstanding and using titty-bimbos. How about with character, story and acting?

Shows like "Quincy" were just as innacurate/bending the rules, they they didn't make such claims as being completely accurate and realistic. I do like some of the characters and interactions on the show...but they could use a lot more of that kind of storytelling.

I didn't think Mythbusters claimed scientific accuracy...just kind of garage-shop accuracy to see if, generally, the myth could be true. They had an out-take show recently that had all kinds of footage that they didn't use because of time or total failure of a hypothesis. I get the feeling that they're trying to be like the common nerd/geek who's curious about urban legends and these are what they/we would do if we had the time and were bored enough...

CSI never really makes any pretense about being "accurate"... either from a scientific or criminalist perspective, at least, I've never felt that it was attempting to do such. What the media and its fans say may be something entirely different.

CSI's writers do make the show entertaining. There's always a tongue-in-cheek approach to the stories that I really love, and there's been a few episodes that I found mortifying because of the subject matter. The one that dealt with a 8 year old's fratercide really got to me. Its a fictional mystery drama within a certain latter-day genre, and nothing more.

The other thing that perhaps *I* really love CSI for is how they developed the characters. Grissom *is* the consummate scientist. He's like SO many scientists I've known in my time. Somebody got it right with him...ergo, he's someone I can identify with. Often, I'd be watching the show saying "God DAMN I'd love to work for that guy!" (BTW.. I did work for someone like him at Columbia. Best mentor I've ever had.)

Titty-bimbos? Which ones are you referring to, the skinny, shapeless gap-toothed girl that defines the phrase "Plain Jane", or the one that has more character flaws in social cooperation than most "major" character I've ever seen (Except for maybe Ted Danson's "Becker").

I don't know.. you can't compare Mythbusters and CSI. One's reality, the other fiction.

Maybe the articles weren't nationally distributed, but here in L.A. they ran a lot of them both on entertainment news shows and the papers: the articles were about the writers and producers and the show's accuracy and realism were heavily touted. When I finally did see some of the shows, I was confused by the number of technical inaccuracies I saw (and when -I- can spot a procedural flaw it -has- to be pretty blatent/basic!).

I agree that some of the characters are great: I think Grissom may be my favorite as well (but I have friends that act a lot like he does). As far as the titty-girls go, I don't know their names (had the show on in the background), but it was apparently a fairly early episode and they were both fairly attractive (Catherine and Sara?). Even moreso in tank-tops.

?!?I don't think I ever compared Mythbusters to CSI-- though I did compare Mythbusters against Animal-X. All shows mentioned were just my rants on two good and two frustrating/bad shows I recently caught.

The problem with the CSI shows isn't that they're inaccurate, but that they have serious problems with being believable. I've read utter fantasy that tends to be far more believable in their presentations than CSI is. I could believe X-FILES far more easily than I can believe CSI, and I -know- that X-FILES was fantasy.
CSI doesn't try very hard to be believeable, just flashy and sensational, and saying that it's just part of its style is overlooking the fact that its just bad writing, and not playing fair with the viewers. (Or that its expectations of its viewers is very low to begin with.) It is ultimately an example of style over substance. If the show can't convince its viewers from the outset that its entirely set within a 'realistic' world (according to its internal logic and to the viewer's expectations of what a real world is) then its failed to suspend the viewer's disbelief and is ultimately a failure. People not following sensible procedures, behaving in uncharacteristic manners for their situations, all tend to pop the bubble of willing suspension of belief.
CSI lost me with the furry episode. I realized then that if it was so far off-base about that, what else was it off-base about? I can't believe it anymore, and thus can't watch it with much interest. I still watch it from time-to-time, but don't really miss it much if I don't.
Ah well; it's not like there isn't worse fare on; it's still heads and shoulders above NAVY CIS -- now -there's- a cartoon.

I totally agree. I remember years ago I used to watch some mainstream television - now I can't stand it. I'm in Canada, which does change things a little, but only by a microscopic amount. We share most of the main US stations and a whole mass of specialty channels. The sad thing is I have to purchase the full cable package (78 channels) to get the 3 specialty channels I mainly care about. (Discovery, Outdoor Life, and the Home and Gardening Channel) I do occasionally get something I like from our Sci-Fi, History, or Food networks too, but again - those are specialty channels. The main basic networks all leave me running for a good book. Or perhaps some drying paint I can watch instead. So much is dumbed-down it makes my head hurt. What I wonder about is the kids growing up watching this crud without any perspective that there’s an alternative.

The best things about cable/sat. television are the specialty channels. It's sad to see some of them (especially Discovery/Animal Planet) begin to cheapen themselves with glitzy-er shows.

[Brer] I classify "CSI" with "X-Files". Utter bunk. (Though in the case of CSI a lot more entertaining because it doesn't even really try to have a story arc.) But, as Skorzy noted -- reality (lab or otherwise) is dull as dishwater.

Heh. Alo and I caught "Animal X" the other day and were howling at the stupidity. Unlike CSI (which at least is based loosely on real crime scene science), this program is just eerie music and camera angles.

Got to agree with Skorzy on "Mythbusters" too. There are holes in their scientific method you can drive several large trucks through (sideways) -- but they BLEW UP A CEMENT MIXER! Come on now, who can FAIL to be entertained by that? ;)

Frankly I liked the "beat the speed trap myths" episode where they underlings created a car with a chaff cannon and a microwave oven strapped to the front of it. (Both were supposed to confuse police radar and neither did of course -- but it made me want a chaff cannon on MY car.)

But overall, I certainly agree with your thesis. Good things to watch on TV are few and far between.

X-Files was always a fun show; they made a general attempt to be plausible with their procedure, but they -never- claimed procedural or investigative accuracy. The show was just plain ol' sci-fi fun. I -did- like it better when they were just "monster of the week" instead of international alien conspiracies, tho'.

Yeah! Blowing up that cement truck was *cool*! I loved how you could see the engine block shoot out of the front like a cannonball! I still maintain that they know they're not being scientifically correct, and are just doing what you or I would do if challenged to prove something could happen. With a bigger budget and better shop than most of us have access to. I didn't see the episode with the chaff cannon, but I want one too!

I admit that I watch "CSI" (except New York, because it conflicts with "Law & Order"), despite the ridiculous nature of much of it. For some reason, though, "CSI: Miami" is much, much worse than the original Vegas show. Not only are all the characters obnoxious and/or annoying in Miami, but it's just vastly sillier. My favorite was the "tidal wave hits Miami" storyline, in which bank robbers had the brilliant idea of waiting for a hurricane to hit so they could empty a bank vault, load it into nice floaty buoys, and just wait for the storm surge to wash it all out to sea where they could recover it. Granted, the vault was on the second floor, requiring a storm surge that could only come from a hurricane that would pretty much destroy southern Florida, which would make it rather difficult to run to the bank and set everything up, but is sure is a nifty idea, eh? Oooh, and that was also the episode that started with a guy mysteriously dropping dead in a parking because he had apnea, which as you all know, means you sometimes just stop breathing and fall over dead. Darn that apnea!

Things escalate until they reach critical mass, and collapse from their sheer lack of substance and merit.
Apparently tv (and many other media) still has more depths it can reach first. ;P

I could never understand why CSI got popular.

I can understand it. First, it was different from the rest of the pack when it first premiered. It was a bit more stylish; it was, in some ways, kind of educational, especially in the way it flashes to (sometimes rather graphic) displays of internal damage. It was (on the surface, at least) more plot-driven than character driven; the story was more important than the personalities. It was more 'realistic' than most other dramas running, and was part of a resurgence of cop shows. The forensic angle was pretty fresh, too, since the only other show to get that deep into that territory had been Quincy, and that was nearly 30 years ago. And I think the post-911 atmosphere had a good deal to do with its popularity as well. It was a show that happened to come along at the right time to connect with the general public.

If I wanted to get cynical, I could make some observations on the expectation levels of the public or of the apparent IQ level of the viewership... it certainly all ties together...

TV is dumbing itself down. Still. For years.

All you have to remember is that commercial television's purpose is not to educate, entertain or inform, but to sell soap. Anything else is subservient to that goal.

(My eye-opener came many years ago after reading Harlan Ellison's The Glass Teat essays and TV reviews from the LA Free Press, originally run in the late 60's and early 70's; not much has changed since then.)

I've met the guys from Myth Busters, and they're really cool. Before they had the show, I'd see them around at Battlebots competitions. Myth Busters is such a unique and creative show :)

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