The CSI franchise doesn't do especially well with female friendships overall, no. I'd say there was some sort of bond between Catherine and Sara--they weren't necessarily best friends simply because they were the only female CSIs on the team, but they did have a relationship, which was sometimes contentious and sometimes friendly. Calleigh and Alexx were close--there was real warmth in their exchanges. Calleigh was one of the first people to accept Natalia once she joined the team as a CSI in season five (after the mole thing in season four), though there's nothing really to suggest they're very close.
Thank you for welcoming me!
See, I thought so about the CSI female-relationships - I remember Sara and Catherine's friendlier moments, but I definitely didn't think anyone could call them friends, although this might be a defining aspect of their relationship, an element of definition that Stella and Lindsay's relationship doesn't have. Again, I'm not the strongest viewer of CSI Miami, but though I remember Calleigh and Alexx liking each other well enough, I don't know if I would've called them close - however, I think this might be because of my own personal definition of what I consider 'close.' I consider people (TV/book characters) close if they talk on a personal level, and not just in passing to make a point related to work. Did Calleigh and Alexx do this? Maybe that's why I'm convinced Stella and Lindsay are relatively close even though their exchanges are sometimes awkward to watch and their relationship has no real definition. They approach each other as personal friend-ish, and I'm not sure how many other female characters on the CSI shows do this.
There was an immediate rapport between Stella and Aiden back in season one, and watching Stella and Angell work together this past season has just been fun. There's no witty banter between Stella and Lindsay, no real back and forth...they're just working.
I think the connection might also be a matter of personal opinion, then. Because I'm a little surprised to hear Stella and Aiden's relationship described as a connection of immediate rapport (although thinking back on it, they did have witty banter that was fun to watch). It's just that one thing I've always been struck by in S1 is that Stella and Aiden certainly never seemed that close, which was a pity. I'm thinking specifically S2, the scenes where Aiden came to Stella - I'm assuming to ask for advice/help with her Regina case - and Stella wasn't all that helpful, whereas even Mac offered to go over the case with her. I'm also thinking how Aiden never went to Stella before she got to the point of compromising evidence.
I don't know if I agree that there's
no witty back-and-forth between Stella and Lindsay (I think they've had their moments here and there), but I do agree their exchanges don't have that element of 'fun-for-the-viewers' that Stella and Aiden's did (and, if you insist, Stella and Angell's). However, I don't think Stella and Lindsay are "just working" - a lot of their exchanges suggest they have a lot of fun working together.
I agree with what you go on to say later (sorry, being lazy with the quotes, it's early in the morning here! :lol: ) about Stella being the one to reach out to Lindsay and not so much the reverse--that's really true of Lindsay's interactions with everyone, which is perhaps what makes her so difficult to like. While she's consistently shown kindness and understanding from the other characters, she never repays the favor, not even when he own boyfriend is grieving over the loss of a child in his care. She just tells Mac, "I'm not good at this kind of thing" and lets that be her excuse.
People reach out to Lindsay, Lindsay doesn't repay the favour; it's yet another defining trait of her character. Whether it makes her harder to like is personal opinion, of course, because all characters have traits that make other people or other characters dislike them. I'm actually kind of excited to find out that people really CAN hate Lindsay for the same things other people like her for. Sorry I'm being geeky
, but it's exciting 'cause it means her detractors aren't just seeing something her fans are not. IMO, Lindsay's distance reminds me of Sara Sidle, sometimes even of Grissom, and thus makes me like her better. At least, it takes away from the things that would otherwise make Lindsay a Mary Sue. People actually can be emotionally unavailable a lot of the time, even if they're all peppy on the surface. I didn't see her letting this be her excuse, I saw it as honest. And definitely consistent (surprisingly so, considering the writers' track record with character consistency).
But I don't really think she was much of a presence in season four, either, and Anna wasn't pregnant then. Her only storyline was to react to Danny's.
I dunno, I don't really consider character-storylines as being the greatest way of determining character presence, so I was just judging in terms of how often Lindsay was fully involved in the cases. I mean, Sheldon Hawkes and Flack haven't even had real storylines until Season 5 (and even S5 is debatable for Hawkes). Flack did have those occasional episodes when he was torn over turning in one of his own dirty cops, but what did those mean in terms of character, beyond telling us what we already know of Flack's integrity as a cop? Other than Stella and Mac, the only character with storylines is Danny. CSI being a procedural show, I have yet to become familiar with even one character storyline from ie, Miami (other than Horatio's many stories). I know what I do of the characters there from how often I see them during any one episode.
Well, yeah, but Lindsay hasn't been spunky and endearing since season two. And Anna was given a lot to work with, actually--that dark secret storyline was gold, if a little cliched (new character haunted by horrible tragic past!). A good actor could have handled Lindsay's emotional journey through season three much better than Anna did. I still cringe when I think about the confrontation with Stella in "Silent Night" or the bad crying in the morgue in that same episode.
I'd still say Lindsay's spunk and endearing-ness is a matter of opinion, but it comes down to the same thing. The moment spunky-and-endearing Lindsay was given an actual storyline to make her an actual person, she became not-so-spunky and endearing (not just from Belknap's acting, but from things you admit Lindsay did while she was reacting to her past). I'm interested to see just how long NewCharacter's spunky-and-endearing-ness will last (imo, Angell's only lasted because she wasn't really given a storyline to work with, either).
Being entirely fair, I too cringed on one of my re-watches of Silent Night, not so much from the crying but more because I couldn't believe they were going with such a cliched plotline. Reese Witherspoon could've acted the part (or whichever actress is really good), but the writers' storyline would still have required Lindsay to be leaving scenes and cutting duties and breaking down in morgues. If that is what grated with you or anyone else, I think it still would've grated. I liked seeing Lindsay mess up for once, though I still wish they'd given her a better reason for it, preferably one that didn't require so much drama.
The first time I saw the crying, I believed it. I feel like such a newbie admitting that, but yeah - I wasn't really judging the standard of crying against anything else, it was the first time I'd seen a CSI cry on any three of the shows. One of my main problems with Lindsay's storyline was that it seemed a little out of place on a CSI show, which I guess is why I'm also a little surprised to find out one of the biggest problems with Lindsay Monroe is the way her actress acts the part. It was the same problem I had with the episode Grounds for Deception. I know I for one don't watch the shows for the quality of the acting, nor did I really think that was the point, given the amount of non-acting celebrities they trot out on these shows. It's always great to watch good characters, yeah, and I'm not saying that there aren't cops with loads of secrets in their past, but Lindsay's storyline just seemed like it required so much drama, and thus actual acting that might belong on Grey's Anatomy, or House (or, um, Gossip Girl :shifty
. Sorry, those are the shows I watch if I want to see actual acting or drama. Shows like Law and Order or CSI don't exactly fit that criteria. I don't usually watch them expecting to see the
cops on the show display a wide range of dramatic talent.
Sorry, I rambled.
I don't think you're in the majority, though.
I've read around elsewhere and I've never seen much animosity against the character. I know you're not alone--there are others here who disliked her, and every character, even Adam, has his/her detractors--but I don't think Angell was a divisive character in the way Lindsay is...and I wouldn't even say the majority of the fans dislike Lindsay. I think there's a fairly even split among the passionate fans (ie, the ones that post at message boards) and among the others there's probably the range of indifference, mild like/dislike, strong like/dislike. It's difficult to gage anything but passionate fan response to characters since most CSI fans don't go to the internet to talk about the show. Among passionate fans, though, the split on Lindsay seems to be right down the middle. I've not noticed as much chatter about Angell, not by a long shot.
Well, Angell's only shown up in a handful of episodes each season, as opposed to Lindsay's...every episode except 9, since S2. It's not surprising that there'd be more vocal battles over Lindsay. When I didn't like Angell, I at least had the consolation that I probably wouldn't see her onscreen for another month or so. It's certainly not worth bothering to gripe over online (I don't know if anyone else feels/felt the same way, just describing my own thought process when it came to Angell).
I know there's probably no minority/majority case when it comes to like or dislike of a minor character, since a lot of fans might barely know she exists and therefore might just be indifferent. I just get the feeling that I wasn't in an isolated minority when it came to not liking Angell, because I remember that Peyton was kind of hated during S3 when she arrived, and she was gone by S4. I have no idea what the excuse was for Peyton's leaving the show, but I
have seen Angell-hate around the net before, and I'm not quite buying it as a coincidence that she lasted just two more seasons than Peyton, and ended up leaving shortly after she started dating Flack. Ugh, I know it sounds sketchy, but this is probably going to tie into what you said about popularity, so...
I don't think her exit had anything to do with popularity. Adam and Sid fit into the show. All the shows have lab techs, and New York needed one--hence, Adam. Sid came in as the ME to replace Hawkes, who became a CSI. The problem with detectives on CSI shows--and we've seen this on both CSI and Miami as well--is that you don't need two regular ones. More like one and a half--one reg to do most of the work, and another one to pop up when there are two cases.
I appreciate what you're saying about the excess of having 2 detectives, but in my (admittedly limited) experience, if fan response to a character is positive enough, the producers will find a way to keep the character on the main cast of the show, budget or no. Isn't this what happened with Greg on CSI Vegas? Sid did fit into the show, as did Adam, but Adam is barely a lab tech at this point, and additionally, CSI Miami doesn't currently have a lab tech in its main cast. I'm not saying Angell's exit was popularity-related, rather than budget-related, but I
do think that when the producers were looking at things to cut from the show, Angell's popularity wasn't high enough to keep her from being expendable, whereas, for example, Adam's was.
MM wasn't a screw-up so much as a moment of brattiness--she was complaining about being sent back to the lab because she was the new girl. There's a difference between being eager and being a complainer. Lindsay came off as eager in "Cool Hunter" when she investigated the case from a different angle, but she's complained about tasks on numerous occasions ("Manhattan Manhunt," "Oedipus Hex," a hint even in "Trapped" when she made the comment about expecting Mac to go process the lube pool! :lol: ).
I have to admit I'm still a little lost. I mean, Danny and Aiden used to complain about the grunt-work nature of their Level-3 tasks almost every episode in S1. I personally used to find it funny, but it's not like it was unique to Lindsay. Sara Sidle used to complain several times when Grissom gave her a "boring" task as opposed to an interesting one. I'd say the more important thing is that she actually did her job, even if she didn't like it.
