CSI Season Premiere "Dead Doll" 9/27/07 Open Spoilers

[drachillix]

@Shayna

And finally, the most absurd of all, that Grissom would say “I can’t find a pulse,” while feeling around on her throat, and the paramedics don’t immediately start CPR?? What. The. Fuck? Not the lack of a radial pulse, no. That just means her pulse might be too weak to feel it in her the wrist. It’s the lack of a carotid pulse (found on the carotid artery in the neck) that usually indicates death, which is why it was so utterly absurd that CPR wasn’t started immediately when Grissom couldn’t find a pulse there. The fact that there was “still no radial pulse,” which was said later, is completely irrelevant and idiotic, considering one would not be expected if one couldn’t even detect a carotid pulse! Dumb, dumb, dumb!

[ex EMT hat on]
Lack of a radial pulse would generally be indicative of a systolic blood pressure of less than 90, not a good thing in joe lunchbucket patient unless he happens to be a marathon runner.

People who are not trained/experienced in emergency medicine are not good assessors under pressure. Arrival of medics would result in one setting up the monitor while another checked with a stethoscope for slow/faint heart sounds. There are poorly sustaining levels of cardiac activity that are still much much better than CPR. Determining the cause of her decreased cardiac output will help with immediate treatment.
[/ex EMT hat off]

[Obligate_Carnivore]

This was a total WTF episode for me. TONS of things that made you think ‘WTF?’

People have already mentioned the lowering of the car and the going out into the desert. I mean, I’ve never even SEEN a desert and I know better than to go wandering in the middle of the day (something that even annoyed me with that Survivorman episode).

But also, when they’re at the crime scene and searching, it’s clear they’ve been there a bit. Yet Grishom ‘suddenly’ notices the blatantly obvious footprints in the sand just feet from the car. Excuse me? Are his eyes that bad?

I’m guessing they are because shortly after when he’s using the binoculars to search for clues, he sees something (the three rocks) and runs like ten feet to them. You needed binoculars to see that?

And the man they found that must have died the night before…What? When they show his face he looks completely mummified. Not something that’s going to happen overnight, even in the desert.

I enjoyed the episode overall but couldn’t help but yell at the screen multiple times.

[Eyebrows_0f_Doom]

@Obligate Carnivore

But also, when they’re at the crime scene and searching, it’s clear they’ve been there a bit. Yet Grishom ‘suddenly’ notices the blatantly obvious footprints in the sand just feet from the car. Excuse me? Are his eyes that bad?

Not to mention that she left the car during the rainstorm. How then did clear footprints show up in the dry sand the next day?

[Elenfair]

But but but! That’s the power of FORENNNNNSIIIIIC SCIIIIIEEEEENCE! (echo-echo-echo-echo)… it makes the common mortal expect miracles out of law enforcement agencies, too. And DAs. Look up the so-called “CSI Effect” on juries. Seriously, it has become a problem.

I’m all for telling a good story. I mean, part of one of my current jobs involves just that. Yes, you need some artistic license, otherwise it would make for really poor television (in real time)… but come ON. There are significant issues with the premise of the show to begin with, but the details are what get to me. It wouldn’t be too bad if it didn’t totally assume the audience was made up of a bunch of morons who wouldn’t know any better.

“Bones” is also guilty of that, to some degree, but at least they don’t make any claims to being a real procedural – they say their show is about relationships, not the science or the mystery itself.

Anyway.

Watercooler fodder for some of us.

[plankter]

Here we go again.

@Jodi

This article, which I recall reading last May, says:

“Reportedly Fox simply didn’t show up to shoot the scenes for the finale as a gesture of protest over her salary dispute, forcing the show to shoot an “alternate ending” for the episode. This apparently cost CBS quite a lot of money, between script re-writes, filming costs, and flying Fox’s co-star Marg Helgenberger back to Las Vegas to re-shoot the alternate scenes. Jorja Fox’s representative claims that she did show up on set to shoot her scenes, however, so it’s uncertain whether these reports are accurate.”

The article you cited had its origins in an item in the tabloid New York Post that was picked up and gleefully repeated by a number of entertainment “news” sources. Let’s go over the claims quoted above.

“…Fox simply didn’t show up to shoot the scenes for the finale…” Since Fox was demonstrably in the episode, the implication is that she didn’t film the very last scenes showing an arm and a shadowed face. However, because that sort of shot - lying prone beneath a car, with water pouring down - is slightly risky to the performer and the character’s face wasn’t going to be seen anyway, it could just as well have been planned using a stuntperson all along. No need for Jorja on the set means no Jorja on the set to begin with.

“…forcing the show to shoot an ‘alternate ending’ for the episode.” This is the biggest error in the piece. According to absolutely reputable sources who have posted confirmed inside information about CSI for years, the cliffhanger existed from the earliest drafts of the episode, weeks before filming began. There was no last-minute change to a cliffhanger ending so obviously JF didn’t make one necessary.

“This apparently cost CBS quite a lot of money, between script re-writes, filming costs, and flying Fox’s co-star Marg Helgenberger back to Las Vegas to re-shoot the alternate scenes.” Bolding mine. Since there weren’t any scenes aired in the finale that required Helgenberger (who plays Catherine Willows) to film in Las Vegas as opposed to the Universal lot in Los Angeles, this bit makes no sense. Unless of course one believes that glamorous Marg Helgenberger dropped everything to fly to Vegas, crawl under a car in the mud, and shoot a scene that could have been done for less money in L.A. and didn’t show her face on screen anyway. Bart Sibrel would be proud.

“Jorja Fox’s representative claims that she did show up on set to shoot her scenes, however, so it’s uncertain whether these reports are accurate.” There aren’t enough :headbang: emoticons in the world.