Last night I watched about half of CSI, mostly because Hudson Leick was guest-starring. (She wasn’t on nearly long enough.) I’ve never watched the show with any regularity or to any great lengths. So I must wonder–what the heck is wrong with these people? Can’t they ever turn on a light switch when they’re searching a house? Shouldn’t the medical examiner have overhead illumination when performing an autopsy?
Is this just a stylistic choice (I notice that the odious Jerry Bruckheimer is the executive producer) or is there something I’m missing?
It’s official television police procedure. Rule #P36.B in the Television Cop Manual explicitly states: “Flashlight beams are cooler than fluorescent lights.” Popularly thought to be a corollary of the cinematographers’ rule (“Flashlight beams are cooler than just about anything.”)
Colloquially known among TV cops as “the X-Files rule.”
I find it a little annoying, but I can suspend my disbelief enough for the show.
There’s a first-season episode where they find several family members killed in their house at night, and the CSIs are walking through in near-total darkness, looking for evidence, and not one of them ever turns on a light. They just peer around with their Mag Lights.
In reality, I suspect they’d turn on lights and probably set up their own high-intensity work lights.
This drives me nuts about this show. They make such a fuss about anyone else walking through their crime scene then they wander around using only flashlights which they do not shine on the floor in front of themselves so how do they know they aren’t walking through evidence? Besides that they would have to miss a lot of stuff because they only shine it around the room a little bit but they always manage to catch that teensy weensy blood drop or out of place fiber.
Also the detective isn’t too bright either. When he questioned the daughter I kept saying to myself “ask her how long they talked!”, he asked her one question and then let her leave.
Wait a minute, if I get into all the annoying things about a TV show, I’ll be typing all day. So, I’ll just agree that the darkness thing and the flashlights are pretty annoying.
I LIKE CSI, but the “Dark room” thing is the one thing that I really dislike about it. All the other made-for-TV conventions I can live with, but the dark room flashlight motif is just silly, and really doesn’t have a point, like having them all wear clown noses. You can’t even say it looks cool; they’ve been doing it far too long for it to be cool anymore, and it’s just too absurd to be cool.
I thought it was because they were at a crime scene… you know, view the details under which they occurred. Flashlights just turn the focus onto what you are seeing (and for the viewer).
In another thread, someone else put it more eloquently, but yes there are reasons to leave the lights off.
I’m always surprised at how often it’s raining… in Las Vegas. And how, for some strange reason, everything looks like L.A.
But I like the show. You have to get into the people. Most of the plots are pretty formulaic, but once in awhile they really throw a good twist in. The cast is a pretty interesting bunch of people though. I hope they do some more Lady Heather stories soon.
Sorry, this makes no sense. Does a detective, on first examining the scene of a crime committed by a blind person, wear a blindfold? We’re talking preliminary examinatin of a fresh crime scene here. You don’t want to see what the perp saw; you want to see what he left behind. There can’t possibly be a logical reason for the first examination of a fresh crime scene to be done in the dark.
I sometimes think it’s an endorsement deal with Mag-Lite.
The most egregious example I can think of is when they used their magic Mag-Lites to find powdered sugar on the seats of an SUV in the middle of the street, in Miami, at noon.
It’s not that it has to be dark – it’s that they have to use the flashlights. If it’s as bright as you can ask for, they still use they lights.
(Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s just a device used to direct the viewer’s attention to what the CSI is looking at, specifically.)
It may make no sense but that actually is the explanation they have given in the show. Early in the series there was an episode where Grissom and company are at a scene and one of the uniforms flips on the light. Grissom immediately berates him saying something like “we need everything to be exactly the way the perpetrator left it” and flips the light back off.
So, sense or not, that’s the logic they are working with in the show.
((And remember… “Repeat to yourself It’s just a show, I should really just relax.”))
That would make sense if he were a detective, but since he is a Crime Scene Investigator, it is his job to gather evidence.
NOT interview witnesses.
NOT arrest suspects.
NOT blunder around a crime scene in the dark.
His job is to gather evidence and turn it over to the investigating detective.
Sorry - CSI is one of those shows that pushes my buttons.
It’s only just a show: I really should relax.
It’s only just a show: I really should relax.
It’s only just a show: I really should relax.
It’s only just a show: I really should relax.
Well, I have found that it is easier to find something I have dropped if I use a flashlight, even if the room is lit. It helps give someplace to focus the eyes as you move it around, and the differing shadows can help make something small stand out. So the use of flashlights while searching makes sense.
Here, have some decaf.