The police procedural has always been one of the most popular sub-genres in TV Drama, and CSI is the ultimate police procedural. This form emphasizes the crime fighting process, and focuses on the scientific gathering and analysis of evidence. One of the keys to the success of CSI is that it takes the police procedural form to its logical extreme, using microscopic imaging of the effect of the weapon on the human body. This microscopic evidence then serves as the foundation for a recreation of the crime using one or more of the suspects.
CSI Las Vegas is the original and still best of this popular franchise. One of the reasons for that is the character web. In the TV Drama class I talk about a key distinctions between movies and TV. Hollywood blockbuster films emphasize a single main character going after a single goal with relentless speed and energy. TV, on the other hand, emphasizes a group of characters in a community that the audience enjoys visiting once a week.
The character web in CSI Las Vegas is an outgrowth of its unique genre, the police procedural. Team leader Gil Grissom is a modern Sherlock Holmes, extremely cerebral, master of detail and the inductive method that goes from the small to the big. For the rest of the team, CSI uses the basic technique that goes back through ER all the way to Hill Street Blues. This is a veritable United Nations of characters, men and women, white and black, with the only absolute being the TV requirement that they all be really attractive.
Funny how all the police departments in America are populated by beautiful people.
