CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''"Concentrate on what cannot lie -- the evidence."''|'''Gil Grissom'''}}

** On "Gum Drops", given what Nick himself had [[Buried Alive|been through]] and how he could empathize with her plight, was probably an improvement. "Genetic Disorder" becoming Greg-centric can be seen as an improvement as well, as it shows how much Greg has matured as a person and as an investigator over the past decade. He ultimately refuses to jump to conclusions, waits to get official results, and calls other characters out for assuming Doc Robbins is guilty of something (Hodges and Brass). Compare to a Season 1 episode where Greg actually does jump to a conclusion about a couple, and he is found wrong about it.

* [[Accidental Hero]]: Witnesses who unknowingly obtain or provide useful evidence have made life infinitely easier for the CSIs on multiple occasions.

* [[All Girls Want Bad Boys]]: [[Serial Killer|Nate Haskel]] despite the numerous women he's killed and raped has fairly large group of women obsessed with him, even he acknowledges that he's a chick magnet making him an in-universe [[Draco in Leather Pants]]. His harem even go so far as to {{spoiler|breaking him out of prison after stabbing Langston and after being found guilty for all his past murders}}.

* [[All Psychology Is Freudian]]:

{{quote|'''Hodges:''' Freud's theory on the uncanny raises the point that as children we want the doll to come to life. But as adults, we are terrified by the idea. The doll could represent the uncanny that is feared. The Sandman.}}

** Episode "King Baby" had a victim with an infantilism fetish (a fetish for pretending to be a baby and being nursed). At the end of the episode we meet the victim's mother, who mentions she never breastfed her son, believing it would make her soft.

* [[And Starring]]: Paul Guilfoyle gets an "And", Robert David Hall a "With". [[Laurence Fishburne]] - because he is, well, Laurence Fishburne - goes first in the order. Ditto with Ted Danson.

* [[Applied Phlebotinum]]

* [[Ascended Extra]]: Nate Haskell, the Dick and Jane Killer.

* [[Autopsy Snack Time]]: Given a [[Take That]] when Doc Robbins irately says of a long retired coroner (who missed something in the original autopsy of someone who was to be exhumed) that he "held a scalpel in one hand and a hot dog in the other."

* [[Be as Unhelpful as Possible]]: When a member of CSI intimates that the husband is always the first suspect when a wife is murdered, the husband's response is typically "You think I did this? This interview is over!" - inadvertently doing [http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/28/law-prof-and-cop-agr.html the pragmatic thing] (but again, [[Truth in Television]]; police ''expect'' ordinary people to get angry when accused of crimes they didn't commit).

* [[Beeping Computers]]: Not so much used as ''abused''.

* [[Berserk Button]]: In addition to this trope being the motive for crime, Grissom himself states that he absolutely can't stand spouse abusers, drug dealers, and people who hurt children.

* [[Big Blackout]]: "CSI Unplugged".

* [[Big Eater]]: Deconstructed in an episode where the team investigates an obese man that apparently ate himself to death. What looks like a silly comedic episode at first gets a really sad ending when it is revealed that the victim was a mentally ill person with Prader-Willi Syndrome, a genetic disorder that causes insatiable hunger among other symptoms, and that he had been let loose by an irresponsible caretaker who wanted to use him to win an eating contest.

* [[Bitter Almonds]]: Subverted brutally: a big show is made of only 20% of people being able to smell cyanide, and there is another, more useful, symptom. So many forensic miracles on this show, and yet this trick doesn't work!

* [[Black Comedy]]: Pretty much a given in a show about police officers and CSIs dealing with death on a daily basis.

* [[Blonde, Brunette, Redhead]]: Brody, Sarah, and Catherine within the show {{spoiler|until Catherine left}}; the female leads across the spinoffs there's [[CSI: Miami|blonde Calleigh]] and [[CSI New York|brunettes Stella and Danville]].

* [[Call It Karma]]: A low-budget porn director slashes the throat of an actress that had been revealed to be HIV-positive and thus unable to make more porn films. Her blood spills all over his face, some of it getting inside him through the eyes, and he gets AIDS himself as a result.

* [[Canon Immigrant]]: Sqweegel, who originated in Anthony Zuiker's digital novel ''Level 26''.

* [[Can't Get in Trouble For Nuthin']]: In one episode, the Victim Of The Week in the B plot turns out to have been a homeless man. He tried to get sent to jail (for free food and shelter) by punching a police officer. Said officer realized what he was doing and left him handcuffed, apparently failing to realize this would lead to his death.

* [[Celebrity Star]]: Many episodes feature at least one.

* [[Chuck Cunningham Syndrome]]: Detective Sofia Curtis was a recurring character during Seasons 5 and 6, and actress Louise Lombard was a main cast member in Season 7. But come Season 8, Lombard left the series and, two seasons later, Sofia's disappearance has yet to be explained.

* [[City of Adventure]]: It IS Las Vegas after all.

* [[The Collector of the Strange]]: All the creepy crawlies in Grissom's office. There's also an irradiated fetal pig.

* [[Comatose Canary]]: Used straight on the original show; subverted on ''[[CSI: NY]]''.

* [[Comedic Sociopathy]]: Hodges, who would make a fine [[Magnificent Bastard]] if he weren't so grotesquely inept at everything that didn't involve forensic science.

* [[Corpsing]]: Speaking of the surgery, Catherine's smirk is probably Marg Helgenberger's own; William Peterson wasn't wearing anything under his hospital gown during the scene. You can infer for yourself the view during Grissom's walking-away part of the scene.

** Helgenberger said in an interview once that the original idea was to have "THE END" superimposed over William Petersen's bottom as he walked away in the hospital gown, as a joke. [[Executive Meddling|Executives]] nixed the idea as they thought that was too corny and odd for a crime drama series.

* [[Crazy Cat Lady]]: The victim in "Cats in the Cradle".

* [[Crazy Prepared]]: Langston. This ends up working to his detriment.

* [[Creepy Child]]: {{spoiler|"Bad Words"}}. A given when said child is a pyromaniac.

** Also the creepy girl from "Unusual Suspect" and "Goodbye and Good Luck".

* [[Cut Apart]]: The fifth season finale uses this trope to deal a [[Your Princess Is in Another Castle]] moment to a rescue operation.

* [[Dark Secret]]: Often the motive for many of the crimes.

* [[Dirty Cop]]: Vega, Mcquaid, and one other FBI agent.

* [[Disappearing Box]]: A woman seems to disappear for real in "Abra-Cadaver".

* [[Double Aesop]]: Frequently done with a guest character, to apply the moral of their story to a longer-running established storyline and/or to one of the main cast.

* [[Downer Ending]]: "Alter Boys", "Homebodies", "Fracked", "Let it Bleed", and of course "For Gedda". Really, any episode where they [[Not Proven|can't prove the suspect did anything wrong]] could be considered this.

** Just five episodes later, in "Crime After Crime", it's revealed that {{spoiler|fairly major recurring character Detective Vega has gone [[Vigilante Execution|Vigilante Executioner]], and he commits [[Suicide by Cop]]}}.

** "Trends With Benefits" seemed like it was heading this way. {{spoiler|The rapist professor's victim didn't want to press charges and the other students he had sex with consented}} but somehow {{spoiler|word gets out and the professor is suspended}}.

* [[Dying Dream]]: {{spoiler|Working Stiffs: "I knew it wouldn't work..."}}

* [[Eagle-Eye Detection]]: Grissom and Catherine provided the page image at one point.

* [[Elevator Failure]]: Hodges and Henry get stuck when all of Vegas loses power.

* [[Embarrassing First Name]]: 'Diebenkorn' Russell, aka D.B.

* [[Hazardous Water]]: Murder in a cloudy swimming pool.

* [[Heroic Bystander]]: Civilians have helped the CSIs on multiple occasions either by finding evidence that helps break a case or even by catching the criminals in a chase.

* [[High School Rejects]]: The standard stoners and malcontents that are always the first suspects.

* [[Hoist by His Own Petard]]: A woman that was planning to poison her boss and ex-lover with ricin accidentally spills it over her pens. Not bad, if it wasn't for the fact she had an habit of biting her pens...

* [[Hollywood Exorcism]]: "Go to Hell". [[Justified Trope|Justified]], since the guy performing it is a self-made "priest" with no actual church affiliation and little [[Holier Than Thou|idea]] [[Christianity Is Catholic|about everything]].

* [[Hollywood Nerd]]: '''EVERYONE'''. One of them is even supposed to be an ex-stripper!

** In the earlier seasons, the show prided itself on portraying science relatively accurately (though ''Miami'' didn't); even the seemingly-nonsensical "acoustic archaeology" that solves the case in "Committed" has factual basis. This changed in later on, the most [[Egregious]] example likely being a computer program that can apparently delete things out of photographs to see what's behind them.

* [[Homage]]: "Blood Moon"'s opening opts for [[True Blood|sex and violence]] rather than [[Twilight (novel)|sparkly]] vampires and werewolves.

* [[Initialism Title]]

* [[The Intern]]: Greg, when he decides to leave behind life in the lab to become a CSI.

* [[In the Blood]]: Langston fears he may have a genetically inherited [[Blood Knight|violent streak]] from his father, which is the toned-down version of his original backstory where he fears he may become a ''serial killer''. In an interesting subversion, the person he tells the story of his father (minus the In The Blood part) is the adopted son of the infamous serial killer Judge Mason/Paul Millander, to show that being a serial killer isn't passed down to people who are neither related to nor shown that kind of behavior, despite what his weary mother fears.

** Played straight with Haskell: {{spoiler|His father has been killing for years and his victims include Haskel's mother}}.

'''Grissom''': You killed two people.}}

* [[Karma Houdini]]: A typical ''CSI'' [[Downer Ending]] will likely involve one of these, the most horrifying examples being Kelly James from "Homebodies", a robber and rapist who not only walks, but {{spoiler|murders the only person who could finger him}}; the {{spoiler|gas company}} from "Fracked", who drove an old farmer to suicide after poisoning all his animals; and Gina from "Bittersweet", who served five years in prison as an accessory to murder, only for new evidence to come to light that ''she'' was the dominant partner, and she's protected by double jeopardy. She's suspected of being the episode's killer, and not only is it not her (it's {{spoiler|her traumatized last victim}}), but {{spoiler|the [[Papa Wolf]] of one of her victims goes to jail for beating her half to death}}.

** A scammer that made a living selling the same exhausted mine once and again kills a man that knew too much and decides to disguise it as a mining accident. {{spoiler|He fails to leave before the fuse burns down and gets a splinter stuck on his brain}}.

* [[Killed Off for Real]]: {{spoiler|Warrick}}, complete with [[Personal Effects Reveal]] and [[Meaningful Funeral]]. Holly Gibbs.

* [[The Main Characters Do Everything]]: Literally every possible police-related duty except handing out traffic tickets. It practically feels like the CSI team is an entire police department comprised of a dozen people.

** This show is pretty bad about this. In real life, CSIs simply go from crime scene to crime scene collecting evidence; they don't lab work. Right off the bat, a CSI's job is combined with a forensic scientist's job. They especially don't interview, interrogate and arrest people, even cities where the CSIs are police officers, they don't interview and interrogate people. Even Captain Jim Brass, the only actual main character with a badge wouldn't be doing investigative work. The rank of Captain is a management rank, he'd spend most of his time at the station performing administrative duties.

* [[Mama Bear]]: Catherine "Don't mess with Lindsey" Willows.

* [[Married to the Job]]: Both Sara and Grissom.

* [[Necro Cam]]: Done multiple times in every episode.

** The show is also notable for its gory body-dives, in which the camera flies around inside somebody's body (often tracing the path of a murder weapon), accompanied by all sorts of icky Foley noises. This is commonly [[Fan Nickname|referred to]] as [[Too Much Information|TMI]] Cam.

* [[Never Suicide]]: Subverted in one episode where an investor shoots himself at a party. It originally looks like a staged suicide since he's still holding the gun, which usually doesn't happen as the muscles relax after death.

** Another variation: The villain of an early story-arc staged identical suicides of men who were born on his father's birthday, the same date as and manner in which his father was murdered - up to and including a faked recorded suicide note. He did all this to prove his father's murder wasn't a suicide. This was eventually subverted as Millander, who it turns out was born on the same day as his father (and Grissom, incidentally), killed himself in the same way he had killed the other men.

** For the "other cops" part, subverted quite impressively by part-time ''Miami'' character Aaron Jessop, who apparently had the observational and mental skills to be a CSI himself. {{spoiler|Pity he tripped a booby trap and got blown up}}.

* [[Open-Heart Dentistry]]: In "Willows in the Wind", Doc Robbins (a pathologist) has perform impromptu field surgery on Catherine; cauterizing a gunshot wound with a curling iron.

* [[Our Ghosts Are Different]]: I guess they're technically ghosts: In one episode, four recently deceased people talk about how they died and what they'd been doing till then. One of the "ghosts" was an Iraq war veteran who just returned home only to be killed trying to stop a robbery. The other three remark that it must have been the saddest day of his life, but the 'vet said for him it was the happiest, because [[Tear Jerker|he got to see his newborn son for the first time.]]

* [[Papa Wolf]]: The occasional suspect, especially in the case of an [[Asshole Victim]].

** In fact, Grissom tends to go [[Papa Wolf]] whenever his team are at risk of harm, for all he usually comes across as emotionally distant.

* [[Paper-Thin Disguise]]: By the [[Diabolical Mastermind]] in "Living Legend". It's not so much that they don't see through his disguises (after all, he's been missing for 30 years), it's that no one notices that the disguises ''all look like one another''.

* [[Perp Walk]]: Almost at least [[Once an Episode]].

* [[Pet the Dog]]: A posthumous one for [[Serial Killer|Millander]], as his son has only happy memories of his father, especially of his father's (though he didn't know it at the time) special effects shop.

** Catherine.

** Well, until Sara returns for a few episodes in Season 10.

*** Which has resulted in Wendy (Liz Vassey) getting on the bus.

** Sofia and Riley also make quick exits even after getting promoted to the titles.

* [[Sarcasm Failure]]: When Grissom doesn't do the [[Quip to Black]].

* [[Scary Black Man]]: Several of these have been suspects over the years.

* [[Science Hero]]: Grissom and, later, Ray.

* [[Seeker Archetype]]: Grissom again.

{{quote|'''Catherine to Grissom:''' (while helping the latter put on a tie) "You need a woman."}}

** Grissom, when Catherine returns from Miami in which she helped investigate a case there, "I missed your tush."

** There have also been hints towards possible Nick and Sara - [[Word of God]] states that Sara's phone-call at the end of "You've Got Male" was originally intended to be to Nick, and they have had moments of reciprocated flirting. Likewise, Catherine and Warrick, to the point where Catherine is upset to learn of Warrick's marriage and even outright comments on losing the dream.

** Grissom and Heather could also fall under this as it is never outright confirmed that anything happened between them. Heavily implied, yes, but always in a way that, taking Grissom as being Grissom, could have a perfectly innocent explanation.

*** Although that was a [[Rule of Drama]] moment, as Sara was setting him up for her rationale for taking their current case personally, that if they slept together, then he would know how serious her nightmares were regarding the victim.

* [[Shot to the Heart]]: Doc Robbins does this in one episode, where a guy revives on his table.

** In an earlier episode, Savage and Hyneman make a cameo observing such an experiment.

*** Actually - it was an experiment conducted by Nick, involving a taser and the flammability of pepper spray.

** In another episode, a missing woman is found with a [[Serial Killer]] at a place called [[Half Life|Black Mesa]].

{{quote|'''Reporter''': Do you know what "fracking" is? (it's [http://gaslandthemovie.com/ explained here], which appears to be the episode's inspiration)

'''Langston''': Sounds like a sci-fi expletive.}}

** Several [[Quentin Tarantino]] motifs are used in the Season 5 finale he directed and co-wrote: Warrick and Nick have a [[Seinfeldian Conversation]] before going to work, Grissom has a rare piece of Lone Ranger memorabilia, there's a [[Death as Comedy]] moment, [[Kill Bill|a character gets buried alive for a good chunk of time, and Grissom even gets to say, "On any other day, you'd be 100% right, but today, you're 100% wrong."]]

* [[The Show Goes Hollywood]]: "Hollywood Brass" and "Two and a Half Deaths".

* [[Shut UP, Hannibal]]: Langston had several moments like this with Nate Haskell.

* [[Sick Episode]]: "Grissom's Divine Comedy".

* [[Side Bet]]: In one episode, Greg Sanders's replacement eventually cracks from the pressure to be just like Greg and quits. Nick forks over a bill to Warrick (who really [[Broken Aesop|shouldn't have been participating]]...).

** Another episode sees Catherine and Grissom make a bet over whether two murder victims' deaths were related or not (they were long lost twins). In the end, it turns out they were both right, and Catherine rips a bill apart, handing half of it to Gil. This comes after a very heavy conversation, lending to a tension breaker when Grissom reminds her that doing so is a federal offense.

* [[Skinny Dipping]]: "Fracked" opens with three teenagers skinny dipping in hot spring. They discover a dead body floating in it.

** Then there was the guy from "Lying Down With Dogs" who {{spoiler|was an FBI agent undercover in a dog-fighting ring who could never get enough evidence to prove what was really going on, and was thus forced to watch innocent animals being abused in every way imaginable without being able to do anything, eventually snapping and killing the [[Complete Monster]] head of the ring by subjecting her to every torture she put the dogs through}}.

** Quite possibly {{spoiler|Ray, who seems to have killed Nate Haskell by dropping him from the second story of his (Nate's) house after tying him up. Justified in that Nate is a serial killer who murdered Ray's ex-wife's husband and tortured her for days. Either way Ray's not returning next season}}.

* [[Take Five]]

* [[Themed Aliases]]: In "Living Legend", the killer uses aliases that the names of movie serial killers: Michael Myers, Pamela Voorhess and F. Krueger.

* [[Time-Delayed Death]]: Several examples:

* [[You Fail Biology Forever]]: Particularly egregious in the shows' portrayal of fingerprints, which are not retrievable from all surfaces (like many textiles), are not left if the actual finger does not make contact, and cannot be made through gloves...

** One CGI montage in "Grave Danger" shows fire ants injecting venom through their ''bites''. Real ants only bite to get hold and then inject venom through their abdomen stings, like bees and wasps.

** Marlee Matlin appeared in a role each in ''CSI'' and ''[[CSI: NY]]''.

** A.J. Buckley, who plays Adam on ''[[CSI: NY]]'', appeared in one episode of the original ''CSI'' series beforehand. {{spoiler|He's the killer.}}

* [[Back Tracking]]: The amount of times you have to keep going back to a crime scene, or a suspect's place (just to gather more evidence, or get more information) is a little ridiculous and unrealistic, especially when compared to the TV show. The game designers sort of lampshade it though sometimes by having the suspects get ''really'' agitated with you everytime you come back to get more info, or look for more evidence.

* [[Brick Joke]]: Each ''CSI'' game comes with 5 cases. For every 5th case, a suspect from an earlier case who was later deemed innocent shows back up again, and usually turns out to be heavily involved with the current case, or is the actual murderer.

* [[Early Installment Weirdness]]: The very first ''CSI'' game had poor graphics, and the characters just barely resemble the actors from the TV show. The cases were much shorter, and in the first two games, Greg did all DNA, print, and chemical matches for you.

* [[Face Heel Turn]]: Practically a ''fleet'' of police officers and undercover agents in the game ''Fatal Conspiracy''.

* [[A Winner Is You]]: After you beat a case with 100% completion, you usually just get Grissom telling you, that doesn't happen often, and that he's very impressed. If you don't get 100%, he just berates you and tells you to try better next time. To be fair though, it is [[Fridge Brilliance|in character]] for Grissom to give you such a bare minimum evaluation. In the games made after William Petersen's departure Catherine gives you a more glowing evaluation, making you feel like you really accomplished something. However, she pretty much says the same thing regardless if you get 100% or not.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:American Series]]

[[Category:Zoic Studios]]

[[Category:Crime and Punishment Series]]

[[Category:TV Series]]