Retro Discussions: The Early Seasons

Discussion in 'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation' started by vegaslights, Mar 18, 2009.

  1. vegaslights

    vegaslights Brute

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    With a lot of the threads being zapped from the past years on the older episodes, I thought it would be a great topic to discuss the earlier episodes, especially with Sara, Warrick and Grissom being gone now.

    So I think every two days a random episode from Season 1-5 will be picked (because I think some of the discussions from Season 6 still exist) and I think a great episode to begin with would be the "Pilot".

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    Retro Discussion #1: "Pilot"
    Original Air date on CBS: October 06, 2000
    Synopsis (courtesy of CSIFiles): "Gil Grissom is the supervisor of the graveyard shift of Las Vegas' elite crime scene investigators. Holly Gribbs, fresh out of the academy, joins the team. Jim Brass is head of the unit and is trying to scare Gribbs from CSI. Catherine Willows, mother of a young daughter, is the number two CSI on this shift. Warrick Brown and Nick Stokes are competing to solve their 100th case to earn a promotion to CSI 3. Grissom investigates a murder staged to look like a suicide with precious little evidence. Warrick and Catherine take the case of a drunk who breaks into the house where he had been staying and is shot to death. Nick talks to a man who picked up a woman who drugged and robbed him."
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    My take on the "Pilot":

    Anthony Zuiker did an amazing job at creating a new show about criminals and how they're brought to justice. I was just a little kid when the show started and I was fascinated with what the show was about--even more than a cartoon. Grissom was such an interesting and quirky character, that you fell in love with him instantly (especially with the way he interacted with the others). I thought Holly Gribbs would have been a great team member had she stayed on the show, but the way she started to go out in this episode was written really well. And the last scene played very powerfully.
     
  2. kaylyne

    kaylyne Coroner

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    It's great that you started this, Shane. I like discussing the older episodes. Seasons 1-5 were the best.

    If I remember correctly, it was the results of the test audience that determined the fate of Holly Gribbs in the pilot. Most of the test audience didn't care for her neophyte character. IMO, Holly was just a bit too whiny. As a co-worker, it's great to have someone working with you that actually wants to be there, and it's a pain to have someone around who doesn't want to be there and is always complaining. All we heard from Holly is that this wasn't her choice, her mom pushed her into it. She didn't seem to have the guts to stick up for herself. As we've seen throughout the 8+ seasons of the show, that's not really a trait that you see in any of the other investigators.

    I also thought Brass was a jerk in the pilot. I wonder how the writers would have continued his role if Holly would have lived. Would they have busted him back to homicide in some other way, or would he still be the leader of CSI?

    I got a sense of the writers trying to cram too much into this one episode. The next episode finally allowed them to slow down a bit and let the viewers get a breather.
     
    Last edited: Mar 18, 2009
  3. vegaslights

    vegaslights Brute

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    Hopefully this next episode will spark some discussion. ;)

    __________________________________________
    Retro Discussion #2: "Butterflied"
    Original Air date on CBS: January 15, 2004
    Synopsis (courtesy of CSIFiles): "Grissom can't help but examine his feelings for Sara when a dead woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to her is discovered as part of a double murder he's investigating. A second dismembered body is soon located in nearby trash cans. Making the case tough to crack is the fact that the killer took extraordinary measures to clean up after himself."
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    David Rambo did a remarkable job with this episode. There were some very powerful performances in this episode and it was a job well done by the crew and the cast.

    I didn't really see it as a Grissom/Sara episode as everyone did see it though. I saw it more of a Grissom/Catherine episode.

    Overall, great episode.
     
  4. myfuturecsi

    myfuturecsi Corpse

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    Given I was a single mom to a three year old when this aired, I didn't watch at the time, but I have seen it in reruns.

    Truthfully, I never cared for it. I felt it was too weird. The speech in the end disturbed me because when Grissom talks about something 'young' and 'beautiful' it just made me want to spew because its as if he's saying a middle-aged man can only feel alive when he's around a younger woman. It was a side of Grissom I really didn't want to know about.

    Plus the scene with the doctor pulling her pants down so she could reveal her butterfly tatoo was creepy, not to mention the music played while they showed her making love to the doctor and stretching her arms out like a butterfly. For a second I thougth I was watching a 'blue movie'.

    And it was a GSR episode through and through.

    Plus there was no Nick in it and I never understood why he was left out of the show.:scream: I guess Rambo had it in for him then and thought Nick was too hick for his precious episode.

    So, while I know I'm in the minority of CSI viewers who dislikes, sorry hates Butterflied, I've always wanted to rant about this episode. So I feel better now. I'm sure there are viewers who love this episode, especially GSR fan and that's fine, but I'm not one of them. I guess I'm a fringe CSI fan.

    And that's just me. I know when its on in reruns, I basically skip it. I'd rather watch the worst reality show on TV than Butterflied.

    Gee, how do I really feel:guffaw:about this episode?
     
    Last edited: Mar 24, 2009
  5. chipper

    chipper Hit and Run

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    Man, how I love the olden days. All the subtext, so any ship could read whatever they want into whatever it was. So all I could see was my Gil/Nick before anything became canon. How I miss all the team discussions around tables as well. And Grissom actually handing out pink slips of assignments. Notice how in fics, Grissom always does that as a segway to the plot? Like in all the Gil/Nick fics I read, he hands out assignments to everyone else, then he pairs with Nick and we go from there!

    I have no comments for Butterflied. I always believe that if I have have nothing nice to say, I don't say it. Especially here at talkcsi where we have all ships and fans.

    Anyhoo, can I talk about Brass-Warrick interaction? Lots of us skip over them but I actually think they have one of the best evolved relationships in the entire series.

    In the pilot, we know they hated each others guts (over the whole promotion-behind-Nick thing). [side: won't it be cooler if Brass said "Have Warrick shadow Gribbs for the next three weeks or until Nicky
    makes his hundredth, whatever comes SECOND?" (he said "first "on the show)]

    Then we have Ellie. Brass shows a really private side of himself to Warrick even though he probably didn't want to. Maybe Warrick is the only one who knows sbout Ellie not being Jim's biological daughter (or did any forensics report out him?). And Warrick respects Brass and asks for his badge only to get her DNA. That was quite a turning point for them.

    Finally, Hollywood Brass. Brass calls Warrick in, they have great chemistry. Then share a hotel room (oh, that bit is just for slash writers to make what they want of it). But canonically, I thought both of them had enough chemistry to anchor the episode!

    And the coolest thing is that they are totally different. 20 years apart, laidback cool dude versus a private, world-weary, snarky detective with a past in Jersey. And they can be pretty stubborn in their ways too!
     
  6. Kasey47

    Kasey47 Police Officer

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    An FYI on why Nicky wasn't in Butterflied. The commentary stated that there was a scheduling conflict and he was filming other scenes or something to that effect. That is why they mentioned him being at the Forensics Academy Conference.

    And David Rambo wrote Redrum which displayed Nick quite a bit. I guess his hickdom faded by that time....
     
  7. jafox

    jafox CSI Level Two

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    To me, on the surface this is a Gil/Catherine episode with the two of them showcased in solving this particular case. None of the other CSI's are involved that much. And there is very little dialogue.
    But the underlying theme is clearly GSR, in that we learn that Grissom does indeed have deeper feelings for Sara. We saw in the first 3 seasons that Sara is attracted to Grissom, and then she is shot down in Play With Fire when she asks him out; but we don't really know Grissom's feelings til this episode. So in that regard it is a pivotal episode for GSR fans. In the end though, we don't really know if Grissom will ever act on his feelings.
    I had often hoped that Lurie would return as a Grissom adversary. He remains 'the one that got away'.
     
  8. myfuturecsi

    myfuturecsi Corpse

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    I guess I'm curious as to why Grissom shot her down through his monologue and then turns around later.

    The music was good though.
     
  9. jafox

    jafox CSI Level Two

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    Well, only Grissom knows for sure. But I thought that in season 5 Grissom's walls started coming down and he began to realize how important people were to him. The team was split and he lost Catherine, Nick and Warrick to the swing shift; then Sara essentially 'let go' and stopped pursuing him, ala their conversation in Snakes. Then came Grave Danger, which really epitomized the whole team dynamic and their closeness. By the end of season 5, Grissom was a much different person than season 4, and he started to let people in, including Sara.
     

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