Crime Drama TV

This was a pretty interesting episode of csi. Basically this chubby boxer makes many enemies who all wanted to kill and while they all may have tried the thing that killed him was a freaking lawn chair. The irony is resounding. He was shot with a crossbow, Injected with rattlesnake venom and fed food he was allergic to. He survived all that just to die because of a lawnchair. Im not saying he didnt deserve it but damn. I’m speechless…

Just once I would like to see a very realistic crime drama. I’m not talking about some true story fictionalized and dramatized so that there is a cliffhanger right before the commercials. I know that it makes for riveting drama but its just not realistic. Like on csi where both the murders for that week are always connected. Or how anytime the detectives on law and order regularly circumvent the fourth amendment rights against illegal search and seizure. Every time they get to the door they say something like ” do you smell a fire?” like that one sentence an obvious lie is enough to be probable cause. Or how on numerous crime shows they “rough up ” the suspects to make them talk. I guess if its not rodney king then its ok. I dont have any problems with the dramatizing so much as the bending of the laws to serve the purpose of the story. I think that it places the idea in the heads of the public that is ok to blatantly ignore the bill of rights if you are a cop. With as much authority as the police already have why give them the idea that the law doesnt apply to them. Just a thought…

The original CSI is by far the best out of the CSI’s. Although it’s not the most believable of shows, I think that with any show on television there is a required suspension of disbelief. Method man makes another guest appearance as “drops” showing off his sizable acting abilities. This week there was a man shot in a limo and a girl thrown from/dragged by a car. As usual somehow the crimes are linked together. Why can’t they just be unrelated murders. Do all csi murders have to be in pairs? But at least there were a couple of twists and turns like the fact that the brother of the guy greg ran over in “self-defense” was involved in the murders. (By the way I don’t think you have to run over a guy who is going to throw a rock at your car, sounds like excessive force to me) I do have to say though that tying these characters from other episodes gives it more of an authentic feel. The history between greg and the family kept the drama interesting. It is always interesting to me to see the imagined racism by minority victims on these shows. Basically it all boiled to the dead guy in the limo killed the girl and the friend of the guy the girl turned down at the bar killed the guy in the limo. Oh and drops killed that guy in “self defense”. Grissom finishes it off with a question of greg’s morality and we all go home happy waiting for next weeks episode. P.S. The dead guy in the limo was the haitian from heroes. Click here to see what the real csi do.

I just watched this latest episode of numbers and I have to say they come through again. Using the tit for tat theory they successfully got information out of a serial killer. The mental blocks and false memories did through an interesting loop in the mix, but I have to say that the mental thing larry was having after getting off the shuttle was kind of weird. I don’t know what is happening with him. I mean is he having a mental breakdown or is he just having postpartum depression from leaving space. It just seemed kind of out of place. There was also a guest appearance by Jeremy Sisko.
You may remember him from six feet under when he played the crazy brother. Well I’ll see you around.

And they say you will never use advanced mathematics
. I don’t know how accurate this show is, but this show makes math look interesting. Sometimes I am just blown away by how much the math on this show accomplishes. I have personally seen the math on this show catch numerous murderers, stop a kidnapper by predicting where he was going, and tell where a photo was taken by using only the shadow. I think that the character dynamics is this show are also top notch. The big brother cop that needs the little brother professors help to solve crimes using mathematical analysis keeps the storyline interesting by adding the family element to this crime show. Well keep your eyes open because im gonna be here steady. see ya soon.

Monday’s episode of the Closer was very exciting. Honestly, this season has not kept me too engaged, especially compared to last year—but this most recent episode was definitely an exception. The crime was shocking but believable, and because they were dealing with a serial murderer, the clock was ticking for Brenda and her team, and the pacing of the episode reflected that. We also saw some exciting personal developments: we still haven’t gotten totally to the bottom of Brenda’s illness, but in the process of helping her deal with it, Fritz proposed! It was wonderfully romantic, and in a way that was characteristic of her, Brenda became completely overwhelmed by the situation, but graciously accepted his hand, asking only that she keep her name.

I hope you all saw the Closer on Monday night. It probably didn’t make my top five list for that show. The crime involved the shooting of two Latino gang members in L.A. The motive for the crime ended up not being race-related. Still, it brought up some interesting issues. Black/Latin relations are in in the news all the time, and it’s interesting to see those issues brought up in fictional situations on television. The LAPD Priority Homicide Unit is an ethnically diverse team, and occasionally things will seem a little tense as a result of that. However, I think it’s great to see the reality of diversity depicted in these shows.

You’ve heard the complaints: “Crime drama is so unrealistic” “It’s not that exciting in real life.” “Cops are never that attractive.” Every serious crime drama fan is hit with an onslaught of attacks every once in awhile from an otherwise intelligent, well meaning friend who just doesn’t understand. Here’s the deal: accuracy is not the most important thing for me when I’m sitting down for a new episode of Law and Order. Sure, I want the shows I watch to have a reflection of reality, but if the legal or medical jargon on a how isn’t quite accurate, I am not going to complain. You see, the moment you start to critique the minutia of a good television program is the moment that you lose sight of the bigger picture. There are so many good lessons about ethical growth, interpersonal relationships, and societal development in good crime drama. I think that all good producers and writers should strive for accuracy in a show, but I think viewers should try hard not to lose sight of what the show does give us. Maybe we need a little fantasy in our programs to make them interesting–if that’s the case, I say, bring it on! Because with the inaccuracies that grow from that fantasy also come a more compelling, and arguable more truthful show, especially if the truth that a person is seeking is less about forensic procedure and more about moral and emotional achievement.

I was suprised by my lack of knowledge in the SVU-realm-try your luck!

Don’t you love the way that The Closer intertwines Deputy Chief Johnson’s private life with her professional aptitude? I hope you all managed to view this week’s episode of the Closer. I won’t give anything away in case you’re waiting to watch the re-airing on Thursday evening (at eight) but I will say that Brenda gets ahead solving the case with a revelation that comes upon her while she is house hunting with Fritz finally.

I realized after posting recently, that I never introduced myself! My name is Alice; I am a first year college student from New Hampshire. I am an avid fan of Law and Order and the Closer, although I pretty regularly watch CSI, and most other TNT crime drama. I will be posting regularly from now on, so please visit often!

I am turning into a huge fan of the official websites for crime drama shows. While I wouldn’t ever abandon my favorite fan sites, the bar for the official sites seems to be raised constantly. Now they almost all offer extensive video clips (or even full episodes) in addition to the character and actor bios and other features they’ve had for awhile. Speaking of character bios, these are definitely worth having a look at. You might feel like you know all relevant information about a favorite character, and maybe you do, but I was surprised to see what kind of details I was missing when I was perusing the TNT website for The Closer. Seemingly minor information about a character–past job, divorce, country of origin–can help you read a character and his or her actions. Don’t ever rely on just watching a show to get your background info–who knows what you might miss!

I just want to apologize for the lack of updates recently. I’ve been sick with some mysterious illness (two trips to the university health center and two rounds of antibiotics and they STILL have no clue what the hell I had) for about three weeks and to top it all off, this week is finals/moving out week at my school. So that’s my excused absence.

Your regular posts will resume next week. I’ll be covering The Closer for sure, but I’m not decided on what else I’ll be covering during the summer.

“Weevils Wobble But They Don’t Fall Down”
Old-school Veronica Mars was back just in time to get absolutely no sendoff from the CW of any kind. Weevil’s back (yay!) and he’s accused of making fake student IDs for Hearst students. Turns out everyone knows about Weevil’s ex-con status, making him an easy target, because he spoke to Veronica’s criminology class. Veronica’s on the case and flashing her P.I. badge at anyone who will look. The group of kids actually responsible hold a meeting in the library and invite Veronica. They invite her into their circle of criminals and she catches their confession on her phone. Using this as leverage, she has them go to the campus police and drop the charges against Weevil.

Meanwhile, Wallace gets tapped for a secret organization and Dick takes a moment for Show and Tell. His item? A video of Veronica and Piz fooling around in the nude he got in an email. Logan heads down to the radio station, beats the crap out of Pi, than shows up at Mars Investigations to tell Veronica there’s something she needs to know.

“The Bitch is Back”
In the second episode, Veronica’s on the hunt for the person who released the video. She quickly establishes that Piz had no idea there was even a camera in the room. She traces the email back to a member of The Castle, the secret organization on campus. When she finds out that Wallace has been tapped, she sends him in with a hidden camera. He’s caught and kicked out, but he knows one of the other pledges. Veronica trails him to a mansion. She breaks in through the doggy door and comes face-to-face with a ginormous portrait of Lily Kane. The Castle’s current leader is none other than Jake Kane. Veronica steals Jake’s hard-drive.

Keith gets a call about a break-in at the Kane’s. He heads over and not only spies a sweater fiber on the doggy door, but spots Veronica on the neighbor’s security camera. He trashes her room to find the offending sweater and accuses her of breaking into the Kane’s. She spends the night at Mac’s, unable to tell her father about her sex tape woes. Jake Kane has figured out it’s Veronica too, and demands the DVR of the security footage for the prosecutor. Keith demands a court order and under the cover of darkness, unscrews the woofer from a speaker and places it on top of the DVR. I guess this is destroying the evidence or something.

Veronica and Mac use the university’s super computer to crack Jake’s password, revealing not only all the members of The Castle, but their secrets as well. Using this information, Veronica blackmails Jake into dropping the charges against her and leaveing her dad alone. Jake cryptically says that it’s a little too late for the last one. Veronica figures it out when the next morning, the paper reports that charges have been filed against Keith for destroying evidence. In the last moments of the series, Veronica goes to the polls and votes for her dad while it rains.

I have nothing to say to the CW. We’re no longer on speaking terms.

Wow. What a fantastic episode. I’m still kind of recovering from it AND I have a wicked head cold, so excuse me if I’m not completely coherent.

Gideon is out buying flowers for a date when Hotch calls. It seems the BAU is under review a little bit earlier than usual this year, and the only file not requested for review is Hotch’s. They mention Elle’s departure, Morgan’s arrest, and Reid’s issues and are both a little worried about how this is going to turn out. Wow. Hard to believe all that stuff happened in just one season. Gideon stops when he sees Jane wandering around across the street. When she disappears behind a car, he convinces himself he’s seeing things. Until Frank gives him a call on his date’s cell phone from Gideon’s place.

Gideon rushes to his ladyfriend’s apartment and finds her in pieces. He takes off. The team arrives and decides they need to find both Frank and Gideon despite not being invited into the investigation of the ladyfriend’s murder (I’m sorry, I’m not going to call her his girlfriend. It sounds weird.). Hotch convinces Gideon over the phone to work with Garcia on finding out who Frank really is.

Turns out Frank is really, really evil. He has a list of victims that Gideon’s saved and if Jane is not returned to him, he’s going to kill them all. The team tracks down Jane after she’s arrested and we find out that she left after Frank almost killed her during an argument. She also provides Frank’s last name, which they use to find out that his father was absent and his mother (who Jane reminds him of) was a hooker - the basic recipe for a serial killer. Meanwhile, Frank shows up at Rebecca-From-”The Fisher King”’s place and slices her up.

He arranges a meeting with the team to exchange Jane for the next victim on the list, Little-Sister-Fanning-From-”Boogeyman”, who moved to the New York area after almost being beaten to death by a psychotic kid. Gideon shows up to confront Frank with all the information he has on him. Somehow Frank manages to talk Jane into coming with him again and they jump in front of a train, disappearing behind it as it puls into the station. Reid and J.J. go to Frank’s apartment and find not only Little Sister Fanning, but the decayed corpse of Frank’s mother.

Hotch meets with his boss, Karen Hayes from 24, and she tells him that she believes he is no longer effective in his position as head of the team. Hotch and the rest of the audience thinks this is bullshit, and he profiles her to show her how good he is at his job. He also semi-profiles the team for her. He is able to keep his job for the moment. Karen talks to another member of the team that we can’t see and tells them to help her end Hotch’s career if they want to stay at the BAU. The person she’s talking to? Prentiss.

I have to admit that I’m a little worried about this storyline. A lot of crime shows have tried to do the villian arc with some type of authority figure trying to break up the team or whatever and they usually fail miserably. But if any show can pull it off, it’s Criminal Minds.