Addressing Issues With Ray Langston

There's been no development for Riley because the writers are focusing most if not all of their attention on developing Ray and leaving Riley (as well as others sometimes) out in the cold as far as character development goes. It almost feels like tptb have a one track mind (ie Ray centered) and cannot multi-task (ie write character development for more than one character at a time).

What they could do to improve things is assign certain writers for certain characters and only have those writers write on the assigned characters while other writers write on their own assigned characters. Every script could be collaberations from all writers so that things are more balanced. Having one writer (or sometimes even only two) writing for so many different characters every single week is not in my opinion a good idea when said writers have trouble (apparently) writing for anyone else other than one particular character that they tend to favor.

 

I actually enjoy the little bits of Riley. She has potential and TPTB are slowly showing it to us. I'm sure that if we got nothing but Riley, she would be getting the same complaints as Langston.

While LF is the new headliner for the show, I always felt that the best way to see a star shine is to see it next to the other stars. Example: when I watch 'House' I know that Hugh Laurie is the main dude. But what I really enjoy is seeing him play off of the other characters. Would the show be as enjoyable without Wilson or Cuddy? Watching Ray interact with Doc Robbins, Catherine, Nick, or Brass is very enjoyable. It not only fleshes out his character, but explores the other's as well. How do they react to this new face? Through these encounters, we see different pieces of our favorite characters we otherwise wouldn't have seen. The same principle applies to Riley. You get more out of her when she's with Greg or Nick. Basically, A General is only as good as the army he leads. That was the problem with 'Mascara'. All Langston, no one else.

But that's just me.

 

I agree, he shouldn't be bossing anyone around. When was he bossy to Cath though? I can't remember that besides telling her she was going to the hospital to get checked for rabies (which I understood in that situation cause Cath is stubborn, God love her and wouldn't go without someone pushing her to lol).

It was so refreshing to see the new CSI struggling with how to do certain aspects of the job like the fingerprinting. To see Ray struggle with the powders was just interesting. They gave us one ep with that occurring and then bam... he's learned everything by the next episode. :yawn: It was so much more interesting when he didn't know everything.

 

I completely agree and I think that tptb are going to find out that there are more people opposed to this approach than there are in favor of it. I think they're going to end up getting a lot of angry fan mail over the summer. :lol:

 

Well, the ratings have been suffering some this season. I don't know if they did after Season 6, but ... these days its more difficult for them cause of the economy issues. So, I'm hoping they'll listen to their viewers this time or else they may end up losing nearly all of them, then they'd all be out of jobs.

 

Well, I do wonder about Bobby. BRING HIM BACK!!!! :lol:

As for Hodges being in the field, I still maintain that they are short a CSI (cause Sara and Grissom left and Warrick died, yet they only have two new members rather than three). They need to make Wendy a CSI (she obviously wants to). :lol: That would be better than them bringing in another totally new character.

Robert Hall (Doc) said in an interview with this site that George did NOT tell anyone about his back issues until it was almost too late. In other words, he didn't refuse to do any scenes that were written for him and he pushed through the pain. So, I don't believe that is why he's gotten some eps where he has such little screentime. While it may be true for Hog Heaven and possibly if he's not in the finale ep much, I do not believe that was true for earlier episodes. The way Mr. Hall talked, it sounded like George waited until they were filming or about to film "Hog Heaven" before he said a word about his back. If George had said something about his back early on, I might say yeah that could be why he has been getting smaller screentime, but according to Mr. Hall, that was NOT the case.

Mr. Hall pretty much said that George didn't get his surgery until they were through filming the season finale. The writers could have written scenes for Nick where he was sitting down (so George could rest his back) rather than only having him in a few scenes (in some eps) had George told them about his back problem. But, seeing as to how Mr. Hall said George stayed quiet about it for as long as possible, I just don't see that as the reason he has had smaller screentime in some episodes. Possibly for Hog Heaven, but any before that episode that took place after the 200th episode, he had decent amounts of screen time in. So that plus what Mr. Hall stated, leads me to believe that George did not say a word about his back problems until the filming of Hog Heaven.

Marg's personal issues, possibly could have caused her to ask for less screentime. But I've already stated about George's back, so I'll leave that alone for now. Lauren just got married, plus she's still a new cast member, so that's the reason for her. There is no known reason for Eric though. So, regardless of whether or not Marg and George had issues that took them off some screentime, tptb could have filled in SOME of the scenes with Greg rather than ALL with Ray. It could have been Greg going to crime scenes with Ray and interacting with Ray. There is no excuse for them giving Ray ALL that screentime and Greg none of it. He's been there since the beginning of the show and deserves more respect than that.

However, I do think maybe they panicked when Billy left and just went on overload on their new big star. Hopefully it'll be more balanced next season. :crosses fingers:

Like I've said before, I don't mind a Ray driven storyline as long as the others get decent screentime too like they did in the Cath driven episode "If I Had A Hammer".

 

I agree with you, GregNickRyanFan. There is no reason Greg couldn't have been used more in some of those episodes. After all he is a Level 3 now and Ray is just Level 1. I still believe we are seeing so much Ray simply because he is being paid the big bucks to be the new Lead Actor for the show. I just wish TPTB hadn't seen the need to push him too much to the forefront of the show that a lot of us being to dislike him. I do not dislike him but I dislike all this screen presence and the way he does seem to boss others around who are higher ranked than him.