I thought that having Nelly Furtado would have been the weakness of tonight’s episode. But she … well, she wasn’t brilliant, but she was entirely acceptable.
I just can’t believe that the show would make use of the ol’ “you get a 4.0 GPA if your roommate dies” tale. I expected better! I hope that we don’t see any episodes where someone dies after a watermelon patch grew inside her stomach because she ate some seeds.
I’ve never heard that myth, nor do I watch CSI NY, but now I’m curious damnit! Could you please elaborate on the myth, and its context within the show? 
Did the plot rely on a notion that that 4.0 GPA myth is true?!
-FrL-
This urban legend, as I have always been familiar with it, says that colleges will award you a 4.0 for the semester if your roommate dies to make up for the stress you no doubt are feeling. As with all urban legends, the specifics are very fluid, as Snopes’ entry spells out.
The thing is, the episode could EASILY have turned a weakness into a strength by having the cop lean in and tell the killer, “No such policy EXISTS, genius!” I can completely get behind the idea that the killer did it while operating under bad information. But the cop’s demeanor implied that he had checked with the college and was relaying a fact.
IIRC: CSI Original had a student ask one of the CSI’ers if he would get a 4.0 because his roomie was found dead.
Didn’t a very early episode of the original CSI feature the classic scuba diver up a tree in a forest fire myth? I remember seeing it and being certain that the science used on the show and reality only had a passing acquaintance.
Episode 203; Scuba Doobie Doo :smack:
I think the Simpsons covered the better grades gag too in an episode. This does remind me though of some unfortunate medical notes submitted to the office to cover exam absences, an awful lot of students with bereavements or requests to care for the terminally ill. I really hope they aren’t leg pulling with them :o
Yeah it was a cool episode. For anyone familiar with the myth (scuba-er found dead in tree after forest fire, presumably because he was diving in a nearby body of water and was scooped up by fire-fighting water planes), you’d think right off the bat “omg how could they use a myth like that in this show?!” then most of the cast started to believe it and YOU believed it…except one of the CSI’s just didn’t believe it (everyone told him just to let it go) and then it turns out that the water-plane was NOT the answer and the case was solved properly.
I thought it was a neat way to use an urban legend in a plot and prove the legend wrong.
I had to take a second look at the thread title. At first I wondered what urban legend Crosby Stills Nash & Young had blundered into.
Episode CABF01, “Lisa the Treehugger.” After Lisa is believed to be killed by a lightning storm which struck a tree she was living in as part of a protest, Principal Skinner tells Bart he will get straight As.
I dunno; the “real” solution seemed even less probable than the legend.
I would expect that would be part of the point, the “joke” if you will, of the plot.
I.e.: “You thought the Urban Legend version was improbable, wait to you see what (in the CSI world) really happened!”
-FrL-
It was also used on Law and Order: Criminal Intent.
Heck, it was the basis of an entire movie.
I made a joke to a friend of mine at work who was a few minutes late meeting me for lunch that I only had to wait five minutes for her since she was in a lower classification than me.
She had never heard of the urban legend about waiting for late professors depending upon their status.
So the joke didn’t go over well.
And it was really hard to explain my way out of it.
Not that I think anyone’s giving any credence to this legend, but I just thought I’d point out that the intakes on water bombers are tiny. The CL-415, the most common water bomber in these parts, sucks up water through intakes 3"x5". Would have to be an exceptionally skinny scuba diver.
It was busted on Mythbusters using what I recall was a larger intake from a helicopter.
What do you expect when you watch lowest-common-denominator Bruckheimer dreck? I can’t believe any of the CSI shows pass for entertainment in some houses, personally.
Sorry…I realized after I posted that that it was a little closed-minded and judgmental, particularly for CS. Let me rephrase that: Given the show’s general modus operandi, I’m not surprised that they put out an episode based on a UL, and having seen a good number of episodes of each CSI series (believe me, I gave them all the ol’ college try) I would be shocked to find out that it hadn’t happened before. Every single episode of every single CSI series has a plot based on an odd circumstance of events at best and a ridiculous flight of fantasy at worst, IMO.
It’s a TV show.
D’oh! Flight of fancy. I need some sleep, obviously.