CSI
From TeeVeePedia, the Internet TV Encyclopedia.
CSI is a CBS franchise of television series.
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CSI: Original Flavor
Premiering in 2000, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation introduced a crew of faintly ghoulish forensics investigators with the uncanny ability to view ordinary crime scene evidence as a series of special-effects-laden tableaux. Surprising programming executives and TV critics everywhere, the show took off among the shut-ins who watch TV shows on Friday. CBS then moved the show to Thursday, where it has straddled the ratings like a titan.
CSI: Miami
The first spin-off of the CSI series premiered in 2002, where production team Anthony Zuiker and Jerry Bruckheimer attempted to blend the stylish morbidity of the Las Vegas series with the sexy, seedy Miami milieu. Instead, they ended up with a lead character who looked like he might burst into flames if directly exposed to the sun, a female lead whose drinking problem inspired legions of viewers to acknowledge their own inability to hold liquor, and a crew of second-stringers who may have driven those viewers to drink in the first place.
CSI: New York
The second spin-off of the CSI series premiered in 2004, thereby fulfilling the Congressional mandate that every major network air at least six hours of prime-time viewing devoted to procedural TV dramas set in New York City. However, viewers regarded this version coolly because they were already sick of Melina Kanakaredes, and having her vault straight from treacly chick-drama Providence to this show was too much to take.
CSI: Bangor
After radical right-wing activist group Parents' Television Council claimed that the CSI franchise was little more than a three-night extravaganza of sex and violence, Zuiker et al created a version of the show set in the rock-ribbed capital of Maine. Featuring Bill Pullman as the folksy, pill-addled lead coroner "Quinn" and Kathleen Robertson as his subordinate/love interest, the show has veered away from the crimes of passion that characterize the other franchises and focused more on illegal fishing and logging.
