CSI.
Yuck.
For me it epitomizes everything that is
bad in detective fiction series.
Forensics, forensics, forensics! Is there really nothing else to be said in this genre in last few years?
The plot of each episode is generically crafted - a screenplay writer started with murder(s), writing backwards, messing a few things up a bit, showing a body and a a few tiny clues.
There is no story, there is no drama, characters are paper-thin and convincing as characters in a toothpaste commercial.
CSI ,
Bones, and others of their ilk are not series in a real sense - it's just a techno-thriller picture-book: it emphasizes more a documentary aspect of forensic techniques than stories and emotions among people. Camera movement is too erratic (that's a plague in American police series for the last 10 years; since
NYPD Blue, I think). And do we really need bullet trajectories and all that?? The whole show is a pile of messy pictures, if I have to say a one thing about character's personalities, that's main character's sun glasses.
Numb3rs is more interesting because of the original approach, but the delivery is naive, and characters are shallow. (not even Judd Hirsch could save it)
Over here, there are usually two or three episodes of different series aired in a row - most often one or two contemporary American ones, and one British (or German) police series. The difference is evident - not only in production techniques and style, but also in quality, unfortunately.
I want a story with characters that have personal life, emotions, that can make a mistake.
I'll pick
A Touch Of Frost over
CSI anytime.