Crimes Solved Implausibly

CSI and CSI like shows are fun to watch in small doses but I can only suspend disbelief for so long. There are a whole slew of things that make them less than plausible, from the agents that could double as catalogue models to the fact that everyone works in a sort of dark blue light, which you think would be the opposite of what someone in forensics would need. Though my eyebrows are especially raised with the following four things:

Overknowledge

Every agent no matter how young seems to not only have a photographic memory of everything they have ever seen, but can easily be called on as an in-house pro regardless of their expertise:

Agent 1: Agent 2, you went hunting with your dad once when you were 9 right?
Agent 2: Yeah, why what’s up?
Agent 1: We think our vic’s wound is from a hunting knife.
Agent 2: *looks at wound for like 5 seconds* Judging by the size and depth of the wound I would say it is either a Mueller or a Hazen…wait, the hilt print on the torso means its from the Mueller R-series, unique to their 1987 line…you can only get those at a collector’s shop in Mercer, Kentucky…Let’s Roll!

Supercomputers

The graphic capability alone is craziness. Not only can their computers cross reference people who live in Peshtigo, Wisconsin with people who have ever owned a grey, or maybe bluish vehicle, with people who have purchased peaches in the last 3 weeks, but when they do this amazing work, they do it in style. Screens are projected, holograms appear, entire movies are produced by inputting a few variables. Pan to a real crime lab where some poor sucker is leafing through scores of un-catalogued files hoping to stumble across some minor clue.

The Accused

Have you noticed that when investigators show up at someone’s house or place of work, they just keep on doing what they were doing before they arrived!? Whether they are changing their oil or arranging flowers, the fact they are being asked if they knew where so-and-so was before they were found dismembered in a backpack doesn’t phase them makes them instantly guilty in my books…or at least crazy. I know it’s probably done so not every scene is the same, but if two agents showed up at my door inquiring about someone I know being murdered I would stop shucking corn or whatever and give them my undivided attention.

The Agents

In CSI specifically the agents can be really cunty. It’s like they forget that a well-chosen pun may be sort of inappropriate at the scene of a grizzly murder: It’s always something like, Grissom walks into a cathedral where 3 elderly nuns are found butchered, “I guess it’s true what they say, old habits die hard”. What the hell!? Why don’t you do your job and leave your smug ass and callous asides at the door!

I know a lot of these things are done to make it entertaining, but after a while it just becomes laughable. I can look past the runway-ready agents, and the fact that the most obvious person is never guilty, but the conclusions they jump to are hilarious:

Agent 1: He was wearing Nikes when he was killed.
Agent 2: Isn’t Nike the Greek goddess of Victory?
Agent 1: Didn’t our corpse here have a friend named Victor Yang….Victor Y….Victory! Of course! Send a squad car!!!

Sometimes a dead dude is just a dead dude. The most obvious guy is the killer and the agents investigating don’t wake up in make-up and earrings.