CSI: New York--'She's Not There'

[T'Bonz]

I just want you to be the best reveiwer you can be. I've worked as a reviewer on newspapers before and one of the first things I was taught was to try to write in a way that opens the door to all audiences. I understand people won't always agree with what you write but I do believe there are less controversial ways to address your opinons.

Several things.

First of all, a reviewer, by his or her very nature, will have an opinion. Someone who writes ARTICLES, not REVIEWS (caps for emphasis) is expected to be neutral. Reviewing, by its very nature, implies a bias for or against something. Otherwise, it's not a review, is it?

It appears to me that you've too emotionally invested in a character. You're taking a contrary opinion personally. Your use of the word "hatred" is a tip-off. Please don't forget that these character are NOT real, they're well-written, but they are make-believe. It doesn't matter what someone thinks of them, in all honest. They don't exist! I love various characters but if someone disagrees with me? Who cares? They're not REAL.

Secondly, please remember that the forums are for discussion of the show and characters, not for discussion of the reviewer and his/her abilities. You may disagree with a review and that's perfectly legitimate and can be rationally debated. However, making personal comments about a reviewer is not cricket and is to be discouraged.

I often disagree with reviews of things that I read. It's the nature of the beast. However, I either rebut the review, if I feel so inclined, or I shrug and move on. I've never seen a need to go after the reviewer personally. When that happens, it would mean that I would be too emotionally invested and it's time to log off and cool down. If I disagree with a reviewer all of the time (rare, but it could happen, sometimes people just think differently,) then I would just skip the stuff, if I was too lazy to debate it rationally.

P.S. I'm not a reviewer, but I do write news articles elsewhere and I have written articles for magazines. So I do understand what the process should be. I always try to write articles dispassionately. If I did reviews, I would most definitely have opinions. I would be polite about stating them, but if I thought someone was written as a bad character, I wouldn't hesitate to say so.

 

[myfuturecsi]

Whenever I read something that irks me, I'm reminded of what a newspaper editor told me about writer Jonathan Swift who wrote a satire in 1729 called " A Modest Proposal" in which he claims that the poor should sell their children to the rich for food. The editor told me that the point of it was to spark debate-which it did. The writer's goal was to spark a huge fight in his satircal and obviously humourous opinion of issues around poverty.

Some writes love to write in such a way that provokes people. It quite the ego boost to know you've set off a few fuses. I'm not sure if that's Top's goal, but it certainly what her reviews of New York does.

I find, however, that I grow tired of being provoked in such a manner by a writer or a reviewer. It's one thing to spark debate, but if the same criticism is heaped again and again, it grows old real fast. That's just me though and I tend to then start to avoid reading to the writer or listening to say a talk show host because I'd rather just not feel such a way after reading their critique.

Now I do like her reviews of CSI-Vegas, she's really good at pointing out little tidbits or narratives in scenes I'd never thought of while watching the show, so she's got a keen eye for details and is excellent at capturing them in her reviews. I wish I could write like that.

But when a review of New York comes up, I avoid it because I dont' want to read again how bad an actress Anna Belknap is because it's a matter of, "Okay I get it." But Top has her opinion and so be it. If she criticized an actor on Vegas, I'd probably stop reading her reviews of that show as well.

But all reviewers and writers have their little skews of things. If you go to another website where CSI was recapped for five years, the writer had her own skew and own take on on the show. Some of which I never thought of until she pointed it out, and some which I didn't agree with.

Just my two cents. I saw T'Bonz's name in here and thought, "Oh what's up."

And T'Bonz right, they're just fictional characters, but a lot of people are emotionally invested in them for whatever reason we don't know. We don't know what's going on in their lives that have made them turn to a TV show for happiness or emotional relief. It is what it is. I guess maybe we need to remember each of these characters have fan base right from Gil Grissom to lab rat Mandy, but that's me. I don't like all the characters on the show. But others do. I may say things on the board that tick off people, but then I go away and think well maybe I shoudn't have said that.

Top is a great writer, though, and really captures the show quite well in her reviews.

And some writers do like to tick people off.:lol: Like Joanathan Swift. I guess Top is the Jonathan Swift of Talk Files. Now if she starts to propose feeding Anna Belknap to the poor, I'd start to worry.:lol:

 

[PerfectAnomaly]

I hardly think Kristine's intention is to "provoke" anyone. Considering that the majority of what she's gotten in response to her critcisms of Lindsay and Anna Belknap are personal attacks instead of constructive debate I really don't think she'd keep up such an effort. There are too many other things people are willing to discuss and debate rationally for that to make sense. I certainly don't think she'd keep it up if her motivation was to get an "ego boost." Constantly defending yourself against cries of bias, hatred and unprofessionalism isn't my idea of boosting ones ego anyway.

She doesn't like the actress or the character enough that she feels it's important to mention it in her reviews sometimes. Maybe if she did it in EVERY review without ever giving credit to the character and/or actress or went on for paragraphs about it I could see how people might question her motives, but even then I wouldn't see what the big freakin' deal is. I certainly don't understand why her motives are constantly questioned when she critcizes Anna/Lindsay so infrequently and briefly and also gives Anna/Lindsay credit when she sees something good.

 

[myfuturecsi]

I certainly don't understand why her motives are constantly questioned when she critcizes Anna/Lindsay so infrequently and briefly and also gives Anna/Lindsay credit when she sees something good.
__________________

Because people tend to remember the bad more than the good in general. Least that's the way I see it. And sometimes bad deeds erase good deeds.

It's like a great athlete who suddenly gets caught doing something illegal, it doesn't matter how many medals they won, or how much charity they do, one illegal activity and their reputation is tarnished.

Because Krisen has been quite vocal about her feelings about Anna Belknap's acting, any good criticism she writes is erased by the very bad one she writes the next week or the next two weeks or three. It comes across as very insincere because readers only remember that in the last one she tore her apart.

When I took public relations, the first lesson I learned was to 'know your audience.' In otherwords, when you write anything, you should anticipate what the reaction is going to be.

Maybe it's different with journalism, however, because then you're writing for a different purpose then in public relations when your writing to promote or protect something or someone.

I'm not saying Kristen is wrong to write the way she does, I'm just gaging by the reaction to her reviews from the readers. Obviously she's doing something right or she wouldn't be doing the reviews.:lol:

She just seems to do a great job at provoking readers, whether it be on purpose or not, she's good at it. That's okay. We need writers like that.
Not everyone can write flattery stuff all the time, that gets boring too.

 

[Top41]

Kristine, loved this review. Considered i knew your reservations on this case i am glad you were very objetive with this story.

Something i would like to add: There is a brave woman called Susana Trimarco

whose daughter, Marita, was taken by one of these human trafficking groups. She never found her but she created a foundation to help girls like her daughter to escape from these men. These guys rape them and beat them and drug them to keep them under sumission and then these guys become them into prostitutes.
This woman also infiltrated insde one of these groups and she helped to set free about 180 girls from all provinces. Some of them knew her daughter. So if these poor girls cannot escape is mainly because the fear, the shame (all of them are very humble). One of them (for example) escaped because she told one of her "clients" her phone number and she told him her story. The man believed him and cops just saved her along with other girls
So for me it's not being coward the fact they couldn't escape earlier. Just they can't.

Debbie

Oh, I definitely don't think of any of them as cowards for not being able to escape--I just hated the glossy, over-simplified way the victims have been portrayed in the other sex-trafficking episodes of the CSI shows. The reason I did like this one so much is that we did get to hear from the girls. They weren't just nameless victims for the CSIs to rescue.

I also liked Stella's obvious connection to the case. When 'Katie' was saying that she didn't have anywhere to go, I was reminded of Stella - in a different universe, Stella could have fallen through the cracks as a young woman in foster care and ended up in a similar situation.

Very interesting observation--I hadn't thought of it that way, but it makes a lot of sense, and connects nicely to "Cold Reveal," where Stella had a similar realization about her foster sister.

The scene at the end with Rani talking to her father's dead body made me cry more than the scene where Gillian told her story. Wiping off her makeup and taking off her earrings seemed (to me) symbolic of the fact that she's still a little girl - his little girl. He came halfway around the world to save her, and he did - at the cost of his own life. That he saved so many other girls in the process is bittersweet comfort for Rani, I'm sure.

I also couldn't help but be reminded of Sid's scene in "Not What it Looks Like" when he told Stella the victim reminded him of his daughter - Sid didn't say anything to confirm it at the end of this episode, but just with his demeanor in the scene with Rani, it conveyed his own emotion at the situation. I'd love to see his daughter on the show someday.

Agreed on both points. I really liked Sid's quiet, somber expression in that scene. He was clearly affected by what Rani was saying.

The letter was postmarked four days ago.

Seriously?! I can mail things within my own state and they take more than a week to get there, and I'm supposed to believe that a letter got from NYC to the Ukraine in four days?

Yeah, that stood out to me, too. A letter from CA to somewhere else usually takes a week, so international mail would never move that quickly.

But when a review of New York comes up, I avoid it because I dont' want to read again how bad an actress Anna Belknap is because it's a matter of, "Okay I get it." But Top has her opinion and so be it. If she criticized an actor on Vegas, I'd probably stop reading her reviews of that show as well.

Well, I guess I should be flattered by the Swift comparison. As for repetition...I certainly don't mention Belknap's weaknesses as an actress or Lindsay's failings as a character in every review, but let's face it: after reviewing these shows for five years, I'm going to repeat myself now and then (and maybe even more than now and then).

I love Marc Berman's ratings column over at Mediaweek, and tend to read him at PI Feedback almost every day. Well, just about every week in his column on Thursday night's ratings he mentions that "ER should have ended years ago." He looks at the ratings and that's his reaction so he writes it, and sometimes readers express frustration over that. It's Berman's damn column--if he wants to repeat it every week until ER does end, he's entitled.

And T'Bonz right, they're just fictional characters, but a lot of people are emotionally invested in them for whatever reason we don't know. We don't know what's going on in their lives that have made them turn to a TV show for happiness or emotional relief. It is what it is. I guess maybe we need to remember each of these characters have fan base right from Gil Grissom to lab rat Mandy, but that's me. I don't like all the characters on the show. But others do. I may say things on the board that tick off people, but then I go away and think well maybe I shoudn't have said that.

Well, with all due respect, people who take these characters too seriously either need to not read contrary opinions that are going to piss them off or they need to get some perspective and realize that an opinion on the internet can't hurt a character that isn't real in the first place. I've seen characters I love criticized, and I actually enjoy reading contrary opinions. Doing so causes me to rethink or solidify my own opinions. And as I've said many times, I always welcome a good debate.

Because Krisen has been quite vocal about her feelings about Anna Belknap's acting, any good criticism she writes is erased by the very bad one she writes the next week or the next two weeks or three. It comes across as very insincere because readers only remember that in the last one she tore her apart.

Only to those who are so narrow-minded that they believe you either have to love something completely or hate it completely, with no middle ground. Danny is my favorite character on the show, but I've criticized him before and will probably do so again at some point down the road.

When I took public relations, the first lesson I learned was to 'know your audience.' In otherwords, when you write anything, you should anticipate what the reaction is going to be.

PR writing and review writing are vastly, vastly different, with very different goals. If my reviews were just PR spin for the shows, I wouldn't be much of a reviewer. I'm not going to sit back and ask every time I express my opinion, "Is this going tick someone off?", I wouldn't be able to do my job as a reviewer.

 

[myfuturecsi]

Well, I guess I should be flattered by the Swift comparison.

Just don't start writing "I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy [Anna Belknap] well nursed is at [30 something year old] a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food" and you should be fine.:lol: If you do, .