CSI:NY Spoiler Discussion - Bring on Season 6!

Discussion in 'CSI: New York' started by Faylinn, May 23, 2009.

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  1. Faylinn

    Faylinn Adam Fangirl Super Moderator

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    Also, as someone mentioned already (although I can't remember who or in which thread, sorry) - it might have been a similar case to Robert Joy. He was turning down other jobs to do CSI:NY, and he eventually had to ask them to make him a series reg or let him go (obviously, they kept him on). It's possible that Emmanuelle's part on the show had gotten to the point that they needed to either make her a reg or get rid of her - and if they couldn't afford to bring on another reg, they really had no choice. (Considering that someone - was it Lenkov? - said once that it was a possibility that she'd get added as a reg eventually, I think this might be a real possibility.)

    Maybe they could cut back on some of the expensive special effects (in the lab and such) - they're a trademark of the franchise, but some of them aren't exactly necessary. Virtual autopsy, anyone?

    Or they could stop using stunt casting. :p
     
  2. CSI Cupcake

    CSI Cupcake Police Officer

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    ^^ I have a question relating to the stunt casting and recurring characters. Obviously it is not cheap to get someone like Craig T. Nelson or Nelly to return for multiple episodes, but how does that compare with getting someone like a Katherine McPhee or Ashley Simpson-Weitz and her husband Peter to do a one-episode deal. Whereas I liked the continuity of relationship woth Nelly and Craig Nelson, the one-shot deals have not impressed me a bit and I could seriously do without them if that helps the budget. I would rather see solid storylines and good acting on a regular basis by the main cast with a few recurring characters to flesh out the season than flash-bang performances by popular names. Just my opinion...
     
  3. PerfectAnomaly

    PerfectAnomaly Resident Smart Ass

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    I agree with that. I don't care about CBS recording artists getting a showcase on the show or about people from sports or different aspects of the entertainment industry getting a guest role even though they can't act their way out of a paper bag. They already have someone on the main cast who can't act; I don't need to see guest actors who suck too. I also agree with getting rid of the "gadget of the week." They need to get back to good old fashioned dectective and scientific work instead of having a fancy machine for everything. I don't know how much it costs to feature these high tech toys, but I would think it would at least help a bit to cut them out whenever possible.
     
  4. Poppet

    Poppet Police Officer

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    Totally agree with all of the above. The thing with alot of the stunt casting is I generally don't know who these people are - and I imagine that is the same for alot of people who are outside the US, so unless they can act they only serve to make the programme look bad. I don't tune in to see the guest actors, I tune in to see a crime drama and I would much rather that the story was told well by unknown actors than messed up by people who are apparently famous for something other than acting. I really don't understand the logic that just because you work in one section of the entertainment industry ie. singing, you are automatically qualified to work in another area ie acting. My optometrist is a highly qualified healthcare professional but I wouldn't let him work on my teeth.
     
  5. CdfSjaI

    CdfSjaI Prime Suspect

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    *nods head* yup. I certainly don't take the time to really appreciate, or even think about all of the "sophisticated technology". To me it just makes the show even more fictional. Whereas character development, teamwork, and doing the dirty work (chasing suspects, manual labor, etc) that makes it so much more memorable for me. Like that Hummer they did for the finale. I wouldn't have thought twice about it, if I hadn't read that article about how they made it specifically for the show. And once I did see it, it did not seem like such a big deal to me. Or some super cool, out of this world material thing. I wonder how much money they dropped on that Hummer. They probably could have kept Emmanuelle longer or something instead of buying that.

    Same with the stunt castings. I enjoy Craig T. Nelson, Julia Ormond and Nelly was cool (i know he's supposed to be out, but I hope we see him again). But Katherine McPhee, Ashley/Pete Wentz are so blah. And then those celebrities like Kerr Smith, and the guy who played Clay Dobson. Obviously they are always the bad guys. So it leaves all the mystery out for me. I prefer the more unknown actors. Such as Vaugier, before the show I didn't know who she was. And now she's in my favorite actresses list. I love her. I want some more of that.:)
     
  6. Elwood21

    Elwood21 Pathologist

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    All this talk of budget cuts. It really doesn't bode well, but it's part of the wider times. Witness NBC's woes a short while back. Guess everyone else is just catching up. This is kinda long, but y'all are talking about it, and I'm late to the game, so I'll pitch it in here.

    I think NY let Emmanuelle go for $$, but at least did so in a way to serve the show's ongoing bottom line, not just in terms of production costs, but in getting ratings while they did. I'll give 'em credit, aside from seeing so little of her toward the end, I thought the whole thing was handled pretty well. The culminating ep was a moving one on a few different levels. It sucks to lose her, but her death didn't seem to be as easily or cheaply expendable, within the ep and the season, as I'd feared might be. That's tempered yet by what we'll see as aftermath in S6.

    In a way I kinda take that quote of Lenkov's, from the small article someone posted here, as two sides of the same coin; sure, maybe entertainment and that kind of release takes on a larger role in harder times. But at the same time, everyone knows just how insecure and volatile a business it can be, at least for those who work within it. An interesting, related point I came across, is that the entertainment divisions of these huge multinational megacorporations are feeling the pinch due failures in other divisions. Paying the cost for ripples in their web stemming from elsewhere. Probably not the sole contributing factors, but significant.

    The belt tightening he speaks of, I just wonder across what boards it's travelling. How high up it goes. I read that in the approach to staffing season, CBS told it's show runners to cut a substantial sum from their budgets. Say approaching half a mil. You wonder where it's gonna come from and who's gonna fall and how deeply writing and production and lower-middling type ranks are ultimately gonna bear the brunt of it. Call me biased for those who work in the trenches, but I have my suspicions about where the blood's gonna be drawn from and who typically manages to remain relatively unscathed as things trickle down.

    After several seasons I'd hope Emmanuelle was considered valuable enough to be getting beyond scale for her work. Simply including her would add a certain cost to an ep above a more anonymous supporting role I'm sure. Cutting, freezes, and reformatting their writing and production formulae (as much as contracts and standards of production values will permit), will enable them to cap or at least generally predict the costs of an ep. At least from the bottom end. There could be other places to trim things. Not intending to be redundant, just thinking out loud.

    More generally, I've come across some interesting things here and there over the past little while that I'll toss into the mix along with a grain of salt. Apparently there are/have been various shows where there are an absolute myriad of executives, often non-writing say, that take a serious chunk out of a budget, and ya gotta wonder exactly why. Some must be worth it. But the sheer numbers of 'em... Who knows. I suppose it would also be naive to think that show budgets were used to simply pay people who actually work on the shows. And how about saving or re-routing some $ by not paying a plethora of seemingly miscellaneous people episode fees. A few deft manoeuvers here and there in a few corners, who's to say, then maybe some cash could be put back into production.

    As for filming in cheaper places, locations and all are easy to look at. ...But apparently studios have charged massive dollars for their own shows to shoot on their own lots... Belts, belts, everywhere...

    All of this, it goes without saying, is purely speculative rambling from afar, but it's maybe interesting to consider along with everything else.:p

    Regarding other recurring characters, I wonder if we'll see Bubba in S6. Not a whisper about Mykelti Williamson. I'm not suggesting Sinclair's exactly on the same level as Angell was as a character. But I'm curious in light of everything whether we'll see him again either.

    It may be that losing Emmanuelle was a way to attempt to keep the regular roster intact, but that does seem like it's up in the air still. It really is too bad that Angell was the one to go. She was always a solid, stand-alone character, fit right into things, and the relationship with Flack did feel like an evolution that was encouraged to flourish upon discovery, a creative development that seems rare enough in itself. I'd easily prefer Angell, instead of Lindsay and the mess that's grown around her over the years.

    I wonder if we'll see the continuation of the 3-ep guest arcs next season. It was something I quite liked. I hope they do keep it. They were separate from stunt casting, and I thought contributed to the show and a sense of a more integrated season. Of course, some of the stories were ultimately more interesting than others. I thought Elgers was a challenging figure, and perhaps the most compelling of the arcs. Julia Ormond and Craig T Nelson were pretty good. I think that Ella character was a creepy fruitcake. I think the flashdrive stuff felt contrived for Us vs. Them type stuff, and ultimately gave both good and bad eps and scenes. I think the greek coins started off strong but fell way short and far far offtrack in the end. Beyond Livingstone. What I'd hoped for it was certainly not what we got. Still. I think it would be a shame to jettison a new mini-format that has promise as a way to breath a little new life into the show, especially if they can find a balance with how they conclude.

    I also wonder how absolutely badly they wished they hadn't done a 25-episode season... An extra ep and all those costs, and there were some I'd rather I hadn't sat thru. ...haven't yet made it to the grading threads.

    Man, things must be abuzzing right now as TPTB all continue to try to figure out how they're gonna make the next season doable, with all the pressures being unloaded on them.

    I could do with fewer virtual autopsies and blood droplets in stasis being picked out of mid air and the like. As I said a ways back, I'd by far prefer a scene like Adam tossing a paper airplane to excessive gadgetry and uber fx slickness for it's own sake. There is a lot that we do take for granted visually with the show, stuff we've been groomed to expect and that we would miss if it suddenly disappeared, but there's also a shitload of stuff that stands out and not always for the best of reasons.

    Stuff that I'd like to take for granted are in the realm of the montages such as they had to open Pay Up, and then processing of the scene; that stuff probably wasn't cheap to put together, but those sequences did work well, and really are equally a signature of the series; compare that to the scene at the airport with the shoot out, that slo-mo bullet crossing? That may have looked great, but that's something didn't really do anything other than that and let ya know it wasn't your average cop show. I don't think it would substantially lower production values for that sort of thing to be used more judiciously, along with those gut-flinging virtual CTs and the like.

    I think the show has probably felt pressured to be slick and shiny and attractive and filled with famous faces and gad help me, kewl and 'Hip' a la PV, and perhaps the marketing and promo side of things were too much of a driving agenda in the stunt casting and cross platforming that we were subject too. And f*ck but the network fanvids were nauseating and laughable. I hope they don't actually rely more on all that nonsensical crap to reach even further for an audience...

    All I really hope for in the midst of all this is a refocus on just making good teevee that stands on it's own. It's often seemed like they thought the dressing could dazzle and distract the viewer from what might be lacking in substance. Well, it seems like there's gonna be a whole lot less to hide behind anymore. Now's a perfect time to really put the show together again with what matters most. I'm only wondering now there's some consensus between the network and studio and those who work on it as to what that actually might mean.
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2009
  7. Poppet

    Poppet Police Officer

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    Some interesting points Elwood21, I guess I had never really thought about it much before. Over here in the UK we are a little bit spoilt, although the independant stations probably feel the effects of the recession, the BBC being funded by the licence payer and not advertising doesn't, so there is no real talk of budget cuts for major programmes over here. Outside of the flagship BBC One, the BBC isn't judged on ratings either (they have no advertisers to please, only a charter saying they must make programmes that appeal to and represent all sections of the community) which means we get some unusual programmes with low ratings even in this climate.

    I do hope if they have to make cuts they make them across the board and not just the people at the bottom of the pay scale - I am sure there is at least one executive who they could manage without. I also think some of the special effects should be the first to go, they must cost a fortune and they don't add that much to the show.
     
  8. Railynn

    Railynn Rookie

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    Some Thoughts

    I have to say the bigger mystery of the cliffhanger ending that I can’t wait for in Sept. is who shot at them?? Even though I am very curious who gets shot I still have a feeling it will be none of them. I hope that someone gets hurt and not just a cut on the hand but actually gets shot, I just don’t have high hopes I mean this is CSI: NY they have a reputation as a big build up with no delivery. Do you think who ever shot at them is a continuation of a season 5 storyline or the start of a season 6 storyline?? I wonder if one person was the target or not. I feel like if you wanted to shot just Stella or Danny or etc… that you would wait til they were alone and try and shot them then why shot at a room full of cops and innocent bystanders if you only want to shot/kill one person??

    Also I am wonder if the writers will keep Lucy a baby at the start of season 6 or if they will do what most TV shows do and have the baby magically jump from infant to toddler over the course of a summer.
     
  9. CSI Cupcake

    CSI Cupcake Police Officer

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    ^Same here. I am wondering if they were the target or if they were innocent bystanders. I think they were the target but there were other people in the bar along with the bartender. It could be wrong place wrong time or it could be retribution for something. It will be interesting to find out.

    I really don't want to see someone at death's door in the first episode because I am afraid they are going to jump forward from that point, like they did with other injuries in past episodes without showing us the recovery time needed to get over it. That kind of move makes it hard for me to follow.

    It would be totally unbelievable to age Lucy in the season premiere because the cliffhanger dictates that they go back to that specific time and date, UNLESS they tell the whole story in retrospect. Now that would be an interesting way to deal with it. OOh...that could be cool...I could like that a lot.
     
  10. csimania19

    csimania19 Rookie

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  11. CdfSjaI

    CdfSjaI Prime Suspect

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    He hasn't had many episodes to begin with. But then again Emmanuelle didn't either and they cut her. I don't know what to think. Just hope they didn't because I like Sinclair, it would suck if they just dropped him out of the blue without any explanation. I'm sure he'll be back sometime next season though...

    Oh and thanks for the link!
     
  12. sucker4-SMacked

    sucker4-SMacked Prime Suspect

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    i definately agree with you on that, becuz if he leaves Mac will move up to a higher position which means less time for his lab co-workers, and friends (especially STELLA!!) so they should keep Sinclair on becuz i dont want Mac to move up higher...

    anyways... I would do anything to keep all the main cast on the show, and if I was on the show as a main character I wouldnt care if they paid me less... I mean come on if this show is that important to them then they should make sacrifices... see my point??
     
  13. Plenilunio

    Plenilunio Lab Technician

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    We don't really need to see him and he can still exist as a character. Mentioning him every now and then would suffice. We haven't had much Sinclair time for quite a few episodes during s5, yet everyone knew he was sticking around.
     
  14. CSI Cupcake

    CSI Cupcake Police Officer

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    True enough. He doesn't have to be there in person to be a presence on the show. Only those of us who follow every little development behind the scenes will get to giggle over the fact that he isn't a real person (if they choose not to recast the character). Sort of a secret!

    However, I don't see how it would affect Mac at all. There is no reason he would have to move up and thereby not have as much time for his team so I don't see where you're coming from, sucker4-SMacked.
     
  15. sucker4-SMacked

    sucker4-SMacked Prime Suspect

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    IDK where I was coming from either?? so at least we're on the same page
     
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