Did I not hear correctly or have I just done some very bad math, or… In last night’s CSI episode, Grissom and the gang were doing their bug timeline for the murder at the ranch, talking about nineteen months from March 2000 and seventeen months from May 2000 so therefore the suspect must be guilty. So does that mean the episode was set in October 2001? I know The West Wing is either two years ahead or behind since they just had the presidential election, but is CSI always set in the somewhat recent past? If so, why?
Y’know, that sorta half-registered when I heard it last night, but I didn’t try to work it out. But now that you bring it up more clearly, it does seem a little off. If I wasn’t at work, I would go check out the Television without Pity website - they get over obsessive with that type of stuff…
Moderators: Could the thread title be changed to include “Possible Spoiler”? (Sorry about that. 
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WordMan: I thought I’d just heard wrong the first time someone said 2000, but then they mentioned May 2000 when checking weather patterns for moisture. If it was a mistake, they made it at least twice.
Okay, I caught that part last night, as well. I assumed that it was supposed to kind of add to the realism - like we’re not watching it as it happens, but months later. Like they filmed all these people really doing their jobs and after they got to the conclusion of the case, they took all the relevant footage and edited it together. That took about a year and now we’re watching it.
That’s the way I took it, anyway.
I’ve always thought that CSI was behind, but it doesn’t really matter. Say, for instance, when they based that episode on the time that man was killed by the passengers on a Southwest flight. I don’t remember when that happened, but I know that it was a long time before CSI came out with that plot. Of course, it got rid of all the fun of the main plot because I already had recognized where the plot had come from.
So I’m not the only one to notice that the episode was set in 2001. My wife and I talked about it but couldn’t come up with a good reason for it.
I also thought that to triangulate you needed several lines of sight that would converge on a single point. I didn’t understand how that was possibly with one data point.
And since the official position of the FBI - and everybody else I’ve heard of - is that no real snuff films have ever been found, can anybody come up with a reliable cite that they do exist?
Oh yeah, and is film really used any more? I thought the porn industry had gone over entirely to video and digital camcorders.
I think for films that are projected in those dodgy little cinemas, you do need to provide an actual film print (oftem 16mm). The porn video market, which is considerably more vast, is all cheap video.
However, that being said, a friend of mine said that there was some really big deal a few years ago about a female porn star’s new movie because it was actually made with 35mm (or 70mm) film like a real hollywood pic.
I seem to remember that one of the characters in the episode said that the official position of the FBI is that no such thing as snuff films exist. Of course CSI is fiction so for the purpose of having a murder to investigate the writers were certainly allowed to assume that it would be possible for someone to create one and go from there.
Also filed under Caldenrical Screwups & Inaccuracies: the murdered priest episode of CSI:Miami. As part of the story, they had to verify the alibi of one of the suspects. Doing so, they mentioned the date & time of the murder. Now, CSI:Miami airs on Monday. The crime wouldn’t take place until the following Saturday.
I thought this was especially eerie, since I taped that episode and watched it later – on Saturday, around the time of the killing.
Er, “Calendrical.”
‘Snuff’ films only occur in conventional media shows.
FWIW, in “Let The Seller Beware”(3:3), which aired on 10-10-02, we see 10-7-02 written on an evidence bag.
Really? So, maybe the writers just goofed this week. They were apparently too busy worrying about the rate of oxidation given specific amounts of precipitation in the region where the body was found and… 
Thanks plankter!
The “FBI’s unofficial position” bit actually pissed me off quite a bit.
Yeah, we need more popular programs where supposedly intelligent people say that they thought something was urban mythology, and then are told that the “higher ups” know it’s really true.
I can let it slide by in The X Files, because of the context, but when a show has a more-or-less realistic presentation, it’s just plain irresponsible.