Addressing Issues With Ray Langston

Sounds like a reasonable explanation of George's situation, GregNickRyanFan. Though I do still believe that behind-the-scenes issues may have played more of a role in all of this than we realize. But, of course, this is all speculation, and I guess we have to flag every complaint with the realization that really, we don't know why a lot of this happened; we can only guess.

By the way, I'm not sure what "till it was almost too late" is in reference to. If it's in reference to George having surgery for his herniated disc, given my husband's experience with sciatica, waiting or not waiting doesn't mean much in terms of the injury, itself. Basically, the damage is done as soon as the disc herniates. Most people heal naturally from a herniated and/or bulged disc in about six weeks' time. However, a minority (like my husband, and apparently George) do not. The length of time they wait to have surgery doesn't change the nature of the herniated disc (that is, one that occurs spontaneously, as opposed to a car wreck, fall or some other catastrophic injury that may involve more than just the disc, itself). The disc is what it is after the injury. It will heal, and there will be some scar tissue. If the scar tissue is pressing on the sciatic nerve, then chances are the person will experience chronic sciatica.

Basically all that waiting for surgery, or not, impacts is the length of time a person undergoes pain . . . and that's only if the surgery is able to relieve that pain. My husband had disc surgery, and unfortunately it did not relieve his pain. But that had nothing to do with the length of time that he waited, just that his is one of those types that is harder to pinpoint and manage. Now, five years later, he's being reassessed and just had an MRI, which hopefully will yield some answers for him.

 

I still fail to see why he needs to be the lead in the first place, why a csi level one instead of the brilliant actor who is now the boss and has umpteen years of experience. The charater catherine has always had that air with her, that kind of stubborn confidence, deep knowledge of people and all their ways and pa-zazz she had left over from her emplyment before csi.

I've always seen it as her unique charater quirks, like Grissom had his. Since her charater is so well developed and unique I'd quite like seeing the show more using those quirks in a similar way as they did with grissom's. Or at least let her use them in her cases a little more than the odd joke.

I warmed to riley immediantly because of how they introduced her to us, and are developing her nice and slowly (though the odd jump every now and then would make me happy). With Langston its just so full on and rather dull, just watched mascara and the only thing stopping me from turning it off was the odd glimpse of wendy, hodges, nick, greg, etc.

I'm not sure if it gets any better in later episodes but he's really starting to get on my nerves. I liked it better when he had flaws while he was learning. That was a huge part of the appeal of great charaters like grissom, he was useless at so much. Sarah though not all liked her was wonderfully impulsive, catherine much too stubborn and flares up, greg has his unsure side you can still catch a peak at sometimes, riley's just quirky and not jumping down my throat enough to form a negative opinion of, haven't got a gage on her yet but what I've seen and her attitude gives me hope, and nick has been my favourite merely because he was so human, insecure and needing approval, watching him develop into what he is now is brilliant and he's still got at least some of his bleeding heart.

Langston needs to be more mortal and have less screen time.

 

Short of Medium and Cold Case, there a very little dramas that have a leading female. I think it is some sort of sexist rule that woman can't lead a successful drama. It didn't start with Ray. It was like this with Grissom too. The reason it was more acceptable was because he had more experience and because he had been on the show longer. I think another problem is that alot of us assumed that our favorite characters whould have more screen time once Grissom left, but TPTB had to fill that void somehow and they are using LF to do it. Greg has had the same amount of time since season eight. It's no different now that Ray is at the helm. I think the characters that are suffering as of late are Cath and Brass. Nick to me has had even more time now that Grissom is gone.

I'm more upset at the fact that TPTB didn't make it realistic enough. Having a noob come into the mix and know EVERYTHING in a ten episode period is ridiculous. I agree that Langston needs to be more mortal, but I have come to the realization that TPTB brought him on to fill the spot that Grissom left. That includes storylines and screen time.

 

"Without A Trace" has 3 leading ladies, and is awesome, and they're always featured. A new perspective from the new TV Guide, from fans. [out on stands Friday] I just recieved May 18-31, pertaining to LF~aka Dr. Ray Langston, who only acts with the scripts he's given~

CSI VIEWERS GO MISSING
Laurence Fishburne is not the problem on CSI, it's the stupid scripts: Fishburne has acting chops and he's proven himself as Grissom's replacement, but no one can overcome awful scripts. So look to the writers, not the actors who play out their words~
namewitheld
Santa Clarita, CA.

Don't blame Laurence Fishburne for the CSI ratings slide. In the past couple of months, the eposides have been pretty far out there, to the point of ridiculous. If I want to watch sci-fi, there are other channels choices for that~
namewitheld
Port Aransas, TX.

 

^^I forgot about WAT. And I agree with the two letters you posted. It's obviously not LF fault. He is an award winning actor. If anyone it is TPTB. LF can only act what he's been given. But then again this is "Addressing Issues with Ray" not "Issues with Laurence Fishbourne".

 

I don't know about anyone else, but I enjoyed the scenes when Nick was teaching him how to do things because we got to see the imperfect side of him. I would have loved for there to be more scenes like that. Maybe each of them showing him a new technique. A guest starring role like you said would have been great.

 

I can see your point. In general, I am quite happy with the amount of screentime that Greg has had this season, at least in comparison to other seasons. Nonetheless, that's after he's been getting next to no screentime for the majority of the show's duration. Also, what about Riley? The last season should have been a time for TPTB to really establish her characters and give fans a chance to warm to her character. Instead, she's been shoved in the background since day 1.

Ultimately, Ray's presence just doesn't feel as natural. It was a lot more logical and felt much less forced when Grissom had plenty of scenes because, in many scenes, it just made sense to have a boss there. But now it feels like TPTB are bending over backwards trying to come up with ways to include a newbie in every other scene. When Grissom was there as the boss, he could give advice to another team member and it flowed naturally as his presence made sense and he didn't steal the scene. With Ray, it feels like the scene has to be his and he has to take on a more central role in each scene in order for him to have a logical reason for being there in the first place. When he's in a scene, it's his scene, and the other characters, even if they're technically in the shot, seem to get shoved to the back burner. (I hope that made sense.)

Also, with regards to female-driven shows, how well are 'Medium' and 'Cold Case' actually doing? I can add three shows to that list -- Dollhouse, Sarah Connor Chronicles and Ghost Whisperer -- but, to my knowledge, Medium is the only one of those five shows that actually airs during a popular timeslot. Ghost Whisperer, Dollhouse and Sarah Connor Chronicles all air on Fridays and Cold Case is, to my knowledge, Sunday.

 

Ghost Whisperer (Jennifer Love Hewitt), Law & Order (S. Epatha Merkerson & Alana de la Garza), L&O SVU (Mariska Hargitay), L&O CI (Kathryn Erbe, Julianne Nicholson), I could keep going but that would be going totally off topic.

 

Shows like the various "Law & Orders" and also "Without a Trace" do have female leads in their respective ensemble casts, but they also have fairly prominent male leads who seem to dominate the show. In the case of "Without a Trace," it's Jack Malone (Anthony LaPaglia), and in the case of "Law & Order," it's generally been the lead male detective and/or the lead ADA, the most famous of whom are Lennie Briscoe (the late, great Jerry Orbach) and Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston, who's now the DA). IMO, the women on these shows get essentially the same amount of screentime, overall, as the women on "CSI."

 

Exactly what I was about to say byline. Sure they have female leads, but the male lead overshadows them, almost always. Destiny, in the case of the original L&O, when was the last time they had a female detective in the field that was a lead. S. Epatha really doesn't count to me because she is in like 10 minutes of every episode. That is not a lead position.

 

Actually I couldn't tell you on the orginial because except for a couple eps I haven't been able to keep up as I use to, that and after Jerry died I kind got to sad to watch it and all. I catch here and there but honestly I couldn't tell you what is going on, on it. I love the Ed character but still when Jerry died that kind of did it for me. I teared up when he and his character bid the finale scene.

As to L&O Svu, while it does have male leads if you watch carefully Mariska (Olivia) has a lot of stand out screen time. There is also the Closer, and Saving Grace thing is any show you are going to have Male dominated and female dominated, and a duel of each depending on the episodes. The Female lead to me is like the male lead over-rated most times. Turn the tides and mix and match. If its an ensemble cast then there should be no lead or single star, they are all then, if there is only one that to me signals that while its ensemble so and so will get special treatment.

I don't when I watch shows like (any I mentioned other then saving grace) I like the interaction be it long or short between all of them at one time or another, I am the oddity as I don't have a complaint if someone gets longer screen time, or less screen time, I figure there is either a reason for it, such as the actor had something else going on (publically or personally), the writers had something in mind, only so many would work in the episode, so on and so forth. But again thats just my thoughts on it.

 

There is another female lead who dominates the show and rocks Kyra Sedgwick in "The Closer" I would love to see her on CSI with Dr. Langston~

 

I see what you guys are saying, but a lot of the shows y'all are bringing up are cable shows, not regular network. There really aren't many primetime network shows that star a woman in the lead spot (as in first billing).