BLOGS
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
- Posted at 11:43am
- 24 January 2008
- by AlisonGraham-RT
- 1 comment
What a week! There's Vera Duckworth's funeral in Coronation Street (28 January, 7:30pm, ITV1), Monty Don, a comfortably baggy middle-aged man in the Michael Palin mould, looks at plant pots in Cuba (Around the World in 80 Gardens, 27 January, 9:00pm, BBC2) while in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (29 January, 9:00pm, Five), there's a freezer full of hermaphrodite carp.
Bless CSI. Even at times like these, when the new television season is well under way and viewers are dabbling around, wondering if Echo Beach (1 February, 9:30pm, ITV1) has robbed their life of meaning, or whether they can really spend the next few weeks wrestling with the intricacies of using the 19th-century postal service as a metaphor for cultural and social division in Lark Rise to Candleford (27 January, 8:00pm, BBC1), CSI thinks nothing of bringing us a freezer full of hermaphrodite carp. Who could fail to love it?
Those of us who do see CSI - the original version, not the daft CSI: Miami (Tuesdays, Five) or the pale CSI: NY (Saturdays, Five) - as the trig point of our viewing landscape occasionally fantasise about a British version. The setting wouldn't matter. CSI: Sunderland? CSI: Trowbridge? It's all the same to me.
I think too that CSI is more British than it probably realises, because Gil Grissom is its Sherlock Holmes. Every week, he eliminates the impossible and whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth. This was the Sherlockian guiding principle. Thus, this week, Gil - scientific, unemotional "just the evidence, nothing but the evidence" Gil - has a jolly good look at those frozen carp and, with the application of his brilliant brain, arrives at the truth behind the death of an unhappy young man and the bearing said carp lollies had upon the victim's demise.
But would CSI ever change its dollars for pounds, defrost that frozen carp and set up an outpost over here? Who knows. And it's already been beaten by Law & Order (Saturdays, Five) the second longest-running drama series in TV history, shown over here on Five. ITV1 has just announced that it's buying into the Law & Order franchise to come up with Law & Order: London (a working title).
It's a long way off. The series hasn't been cast and it won't be ready until next year, but it's an exciting prospect. Law & Order, when it's on form, can be terrific - well made and thoughtful (if occasionally a bit preachy). It doesn't exactly set Five's schedules alight but it's always a safe berth if you are casting around for something to pass the time on a Saturday night.
Our version will be made by Kudos, the people behind Spooks, Hustle and Life on Mars, and Dick Wolf, the creator of Law & Order. I've met Dick Wolf and he's a brilliant man with television in his bone marrow. In the absence of my Brit-CSI dream, I think it might well do nicely, frozen carp notwithstanding.
**
Alison Graham is TV editor of Radio Times.
Comments
- Posted on 31 March 2008
- at 9:39pm
- by EmpireClover
I disagree with your comments on CSI:NY even if they were only in passing. I find it much more entertaining and the cases are more exciting than the original CSI, which seems to be struggling for original ideas, especially with the cast rapidly dwindling.
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