CSI:NY Spoiler Discussion - Bring on Season 6!

Yes, I totally want to debate about Adam! That's the thing with him - I think he's cute and likable, much like Sid, but I don't really get much about him or see much to get me invested in him (enough to discuss and debate about, anyway - he stutters adorably and had an abusive father, but neither of those really make him controversial even in the fandom let alone the show), so while I've always liked him, I've never really classed him among my favourites. It was the same with Hawkes for a long time, only Hawkes got plenty controversial in S5 (what with the way he basically told that girl in "Prey" how to get away with murder), and therefore became that much more interesting to me. To be honest, Flack only started to tie with Lindsay as my absolute favourite after "Pay Up".

So I want to get Adam. I don't know how much his awkwardness has to do with bullying...in my experience, past-bullying usually leads to social awkwardness rather than the reverse - the shyness/awkwardness is rarely there before the bullying starts. But what's interesting with Adam is that outside of case-work, he usually starts talking a lot/sticking up for himself...in general is more comfortable, when people are forcing him to stick up for himself (Danny in "Daze of Wine and Roaches", Mac in..um, almost every episode they interact in, etc); and then he seems most comfortable around those people. It's when people are praising him that he tends to get extremely stuttery, not even able to get out a coherent reply until the other person leaves the room. I've seen the way he stutters around Stella be used as evidence that Adam has a crush on her, but I'm not sure that's what it is at all. Stella is basically the only character who's constantly giving him fabulous reinforcement ("great work!" "You, are the best, Adam!", etc). He did the same thing in "Not What it Looks Like", when Mac was all "great work, Adam". I will totally go to the Adam thread to continue this if anyone wants

Very OT, I'm sorry: And to Faylinn, I agree with so much that you said in your post. Especially about the Harry Potter fandom (yes, I was in that too :lol; that's the one I really had in mind when I mentioned that controversial characters inspire the most talk. One would think the controversial characters of Harry Potter would be the standard "baddies": Voldemort, the Death Eaters, and so on. But aside from shipping debates, the gloves usually came off in HP fandom during debates surrounding Harry Potter (the character), Albus Dumbledore, Draco Malfoy, Severus Snape, and Ginny Weasley. To a lesser extent, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. And those debates were huge and epic, and most of the controversy was (to sum it up) about whether those characters were as good/nice as they were made out to be in the books (or in the case of Snape and Draco, if they were as bad/evil as they were made out to be). The author's original intent in writing those characters meant squat. And with Harry, Dumbledore and Snape, that could make sense since they were main characters. But the amount of page-space devoted to either Ginny or Draco throughout the entire series of 7 books - keeping in mind most of the books reached 600+ pages - probably wouldn't even fill the volume of the first 200-page Harry Potter book. Totally Srs business , fandom was. But there was a lot of passionate response there. Personally, that's why I don't see the passionate response to Lindsay as a particularly bad thing.

 

For the record, I wasn't out on a "witch hunt" for Lindsay fans nor was I trying to imply Lindsay only has seven fans. I was using an arbitrary number to illustrate that multiple people who post in multiple places don't equal popularity. They still only count as one person even if they post on five different message boards. I also was never trying to say that people who don't like Lindsay don't go on multiple boards and post. I know I do, and I don't have the same user name on every board for various reasons. The only point I was trying to make is that you can't really guage popularity by how many posts are made or effectiveness on how much debate goes on.

As for the self insert and Mary Sue comments, I stand by those. I in no way was saying all Lindsay or DL fans are self inserting for Lindsay. But I do think some of the most passionate, emotionally invested fans are like that. If that wasn't the case you wouldn't see people who get so personally offended by things said about a fictional character. There's a difference between becoming emotionally invested in and identifying with a character and being offended/hurt/whatever because someone said something about that character you didn't like and/or agree with. And again, just because Lindsay sparks that kind of emotion doesn't equal "popular."

Even though I don't think she qualifies as popular I am fully aware she has at least as many people who like her as dislike her and that both sides of the fence have valid reasons for their opinions. To me "popular" means that the number of fans who love the character really out number the number of fans who dislike the character. From what I've seen around the net I can't say that I believe that to be the case, just as I can't say the number of fans who dislike her out number the fans who like her.

 

OT Harry Potter Stuff: I was just a fan of the books until after DH came out and I needed some form of vent since no one I know reads the books. I read Harry, A History and realized that I missed a big huge pile of controversy and death threats against completely innocent podcast hosts. So I know that the HP fandom is insane.

CSI Stuff: The controversies are part of the reason that I ditched IMDb. First of all, it was never active like this site is. Secondly, it was like each board was packed of cliques of certain viewpoints and god forbid you voice an opposing viewpoint. TalkCSI has legitimate discussion.

That was always the problem I had with the CSI magazine. When they had votes for favorite scenes/episodes, it was almost always either GSR or DL related in the issues focusing on GSR and DL.

Sites are biased, and I have a feeling that the bigger the site is, the more popular a character is considered. For all I know there might be a site with a million people that hate Lindsay, or there might be a site with two million people that love her.

I think I just ranted about stuff that no one cares about, but that's been my opinion on Lindsay. It's not that few people like her. I think that it's more of what you're reading.

 

Just peaking in here to say : I want the Adam debate to continue!!! So, Maya, if you feel up to it after all your Lindsay debates lol you know where to find my posts XD

 

I recall reading an interesting article a couple of years ago about audience surrogates. In that case it was focusing on the character of Chloe in 24 as being the person who regular fans can relate to. She was the one who reacted in many circumstances as the fans themselves could imagine reacting (if they could get away with it). Most of the other characters were far removed from people's everyday lives and while exciting to watch, there is a certain distance between the viewer and character. The theory of audience surrogates is that the person is often a sidekick or lesser character who helps to fill in the blanks and answer questions that the audience has. They are considered to be more realistic and easy to relate to, another example that comes to mind is the Dr's assistant in Dr Who.

I think both Adam and Lindsay can be considered by many fans as audience surrogates. They are easier to relate to and can often be likened to people we meet every day. The likes of Danny, Flack, Mac and Stella are somewhat more removed from that. They may all be flawed but there are certain circumstances where you know that they'll achieve significantly more than the average person put in the same position. They will more than likely win in a fight, be it physical or not, they will more than likely be right (esp Mac), even if they're considered wrong by some higher power the viewer can often see them as being right on emotional or moral levels (Danny).

For me, the term self-insert brings to mind teenage girls who haven't yet ventured into the real realms of adult relationships themselves and so, in this case live vicariously through Lindsay and have Danny as their tv boyfriend. While I'm sure that does happen in a few cases, to me those fans are minimal. Maybe it's because I tend to only go to a couple of fan sites and steer clear of many of the other boards, but I really do believe that a lot of Lindsay fans relate to her for herself more so than the fact she's with Danny. There really are a good deal of intelligent Lindsay fans who post out there, I also think that Anna has loyal followers. No that doesn't make Lindsay popular as such, but I also don't see her as unpopular. Polarizing, deinitely - intentional or not. So, while I can understand the concept of characters as an audience surrogate I find myself objecting to the self-inserting theory as I believe it's by no means used by a significant number. Audience surrogacy strikes me as a relatively normal occurence, whereas self-inserting seems a little unhealthy.

Being that this is the spoiler discussion thread I ought to mention something about spoilers. I'm not at all surprised by the Flack spoiler. It actually makes me think that his grief might be something we see play out over the whole season if he's using work as a means to deal with it. Of course, I could be wrong and it doesn't play out like that at all, but I can see something happening further down the line for him rather than early on in the season. I might be being a little optimistic though.

 

JellyBelly, very interesting output on the subject of Lindsay. I never read about audience surrogates but it does makes a lot of sense and I can see why some characters can be perceived as audience surrogates, specially Adam. So, I have to give you the ultimate boring response : AGREED with everything!

And self-inserting is indeed unhealthy.

Why not get optimistic!!! The season premiere approaches slowly but surely so we might as well welcome it with a huge smile and good hopes instead of tears and bitterness. No matter how I stated some spoilers were boring and blabla, I'm happy to get another season of CSI:NY.

It's true that Flack drowning in work means we could see him trouble for more than a few episodes though I would love to see him kick back to his usual self eventually. I don't know how they'll cut in time frame. No matter what they do, I guess in the end what we really want is to see the whole process of him griving, struggling and then rising from the ashes, not cut.

 

Well I've been gone for a while, reading here and there some spoilers. The more I read the more I do believe I should have been a bigger Danny fan, at least I'd get the angst I so desire. I'm sure what I think should happen won't, and it won't do justice and I'll just be bitter about it. So with that said, I guess I'll have to wait until the actual episode to get bitter hahah

 

Please hurry I'm getting sick of hearing about Lindsey:scream:
I read an article of an interview with PV this evening and she was asked about the death of Jess and budget cuts and the hiring of Sarah and she said they chose Jess to kill off because of budget cuts and how it would affect another character. So it sounds to me (and I hope this is not just wishful thinking) that they are aware of the prospects they have with Flacks character and they will hopefully take advantage of that. That and the hiring of Sarah they hope will bring in the 19 to 25 crowd. It was also hinted or suggested by the interviewer that Sarah was not the "Kate" character and there may be someone else for that role. AHEM we will see.

 

I agree. I tried to make a point with my Donald/Timmy example up there, but I'm not sure I ever really got back around to the point with the 'self-insert' issue. (Actually, I'm pretty sure I didn't. :lol How I would feel about Donald cheating on Timmy is, I'm sure, similar to what a lot of CSI:NY fans felt about Danny sleeping with Rikki - there is an emotional attachment there, and there is an investment in the relationship. It's not self-inserting, it's just watching and making a connection (as I'm sure the writers were hoping we would).

People hate Adam (unbelievable, I know ), but while I disagree, I'm not offended. I have watched multiple shows where my preferred canon pairing of choice was despised by a lot of people - many of these same people were thrilled with relationships that happened after my ship sank. I don't particularly like Kevin with Ambrosius over on "Dante's Cove", but I'm not upset if people ship it like it's their job. They're just enjoying something that I enjoy in a different way.

I think that's where the claims of 'self-insert' fans come in, referring to a section (likely a small section) of the fanbase. It's one thing for Sally (generic name - sorry if it's yours ) to be attached to a character and invested in what happens to them - it's quite a different thing if Sally is unable to separate how people feel about her favorite character from how people feel about her. There's disagreeing/debating/discussing various viewpoints, and then there's reacting angrily to the viewpoint itself.

Personally, that's when the line gets blurred between an "audience surrogate" (nice term, JellyBelly - and very interesting post! ) and a self-insert. Relating to a character is one thing - getting offended on his/her behalf is a different matter altogether. Certainly it's not fair to say that all or even most fans cross that line, but it definitely happens.

(BTW, I wouldn't say that self-inserting is necessarily limited to romantic situations. While that might be a popular reason to self-insert with a character, I think it's also possible for someone to self-insert into a character simply because it's someone the person identifies with, someone the person aspires to be like, someone the person admires - or maybe they just like to place themselves into a fictional world from TV or books or movies and they choose a person to 'be' in that fictional world. I don't think the concept is entirely unhealthy - I distinctly recall wanting to be characters from some of my favorite books when I was younger - but I think it can be an unhealthy thing if a person is unable to differentiate between reality and fiction. That's off on a tangent, I know, but I think people too often dismiss the idea of 'self-insert' as nothing more than a proxy to be part of a romantic relationship - personally, I think it can be a more complex situation. [/rambling] )

Anywho...

I don't think it's necessarily a sign that we're only going to see DL this season or that Flack won't get any focus just based on the spoilers we've seen - there's always more to the story, and it seems like they're being pretty tight-lipped with a lot of what's going on this season. We do know that Hawkes will get a love interest, and as Lori said, they seem to have chosen Angell because of the rich possibilities it provided for Flack (here's hoping they plan to use them beyond just the finale ). We know we're going to learn a bit about Mac as quickly as the second episode, and Danny's injury will hopefully provide for some individual development in addition to however they plan to use it for Messer Family Time. I'm confident that the new girl will provide a new perspective - and also that by interacting with our existing guys and gals, she'll provide us with a new look at people we're familiar with. Maybe she'll be buddies with Adam or she'll clash with someone (despite her apparent awesomeness ), and hopefully her presence will teach us not only about her but also about the existing team members.

Plus, in the meantime, we're going to get some interesting cases if the spoilers for the first few episodes are any indication - and judging by episode 3, we might be seeing some more only-in-NYC cases during season 6.

So, while I am the eternal pessimist when it comes to this show (expect the worst so you won't be disappointed ), I think there have been enough tidbits given out in the midst of the repetitive stuff to give us hope for season 6. All we've really gotten so far are some generic responses and broad statements, plus some specific details for just the first few episodes. They only just started filming season 6, and we already have some good stuff to look forward to. Hopefully they'll satisfy the inner optimist that lurks beneath my pessimist exterior.

BTW, I've seen it suggested that Sarah Carter will be playing a different new character in addition to the 'Kaye Sullivan' character they announced in the past. I have to say, I'm not buying it. I think they just changed their initial 'we're looking for a new CSI' angle and went with the 'clean-up tech who aspires to be a CSI' angle instead.

I mean, they were casting Kaye Sullivan and then announced that Sarah won the 'series regular role' - her character was later described as the clean-up tech, a situation which makes sense with what Hill said about the new girl starting as recurring. (My guess is she'll become a CSI when TPTB have determined that she's a good fit.)

So yeah, my interpretation is that there's only one new character. If they reveal information that proves me wrong, we'll see, but that's how I'm looking at it for now.

 

I agree with you Faylynn... If they hired TWO new characters after killing off Angel there would be an awful lot if ticked off Angel fans.

 

I like these terms. I have to admit I am new to fan sites I really didn't know they existed until I lost my job and had too much time on my hands and made this great discovery one day. I have been having a lot of fun! But wow - I did not know that some people get so wrapped up in a character that they take it personally when you don't like them. Over on the fanfiction site (another recent discovery) there is like this war going on. Some "self inserting" DL fans get very upset if anyone writes anything "bad" about Danny or Lindsey or ship them with someone else. This has caused other writers to band together and the comments have gotten pretty nasty back and forth. I have more fun reading them then the stories.

I realize that almost all the Danny, Lindsey, or DL fans are just like the rest of us, they like their character or ship and could care less if someone else doesn't. But it seems that the few DL fans that are obsessed are just really vocal about it and really vocal on numerous sites. I think it is the same few.

I agree 100% with this. Everything we get has be so generic so the show can go so many directions. Hopefully we won't be disappointed and it will be a great season. (I'm trying to satisfy my inner optimist too!)

 

I know this is still off-topic, but I'm really glad you mentioned the whole romantic angle of self-inserting. Because I know self-inserting really exists - I've seen it firsthand. It's just that I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around the idea that it would exist solely because of the self-inserter's desire for another character...because with the contexts I'm used to seeing it in, that doesn't seem possible. Again, I'm completely taking everyone's word for it that there are DL fans out there who self-insert as Lindsay because they have a crush on Danny; and get personally injured on her behalf for that reason. Because I've never seen anything like that, at least not in CSI:NY fandom.

I have seen it hundreds of thousands of times, though, in Harry Potter fandom. Sorry for bringing HP up again, but it's really the only/best example I have. People who get personally offended by someone calling Ginny (or Harry) manipulative, or Draco an "evil toerag who deserves to be shot" - and then resort to personal slurs against that someone to get back at them. I've always thought those were classic examples of self-insertion (please correct me if I'm wrong!). But I don't see how another character's popularity could then come into play with the self-inserter's devotion to their favourite character. HP is a book, so it's not like everyone has the same image of what the characters looks like. Generally, if a fan is self-inserting, they're self-inserting for their favourite character alone, and not for another character. I could see a self-insertion-out-of-desire case being made for Ginny, since Harry/Ginny is both canon and a fairly big "ship" in the fandom; but a) Harry's not exactly the perfect boyfriend even in the book, and b) the actor who plays Harry in the movies isn't about to win a spot on Hollywood's 10 Sexiest Men, or even 100 Sexiest Men (sorry to any Dan Radcliffe fans out there ).

So I guess it is possible to self-insert solely out of romantic interest in another character, but if I seemed skeptical, blame Harry Potter :lol:. I just assume that the case would be the same in CSI:NY.

Back OT!!

Has anyone seen the slides for episode 6.03 that are up on SpoilerTV? Looks like we're getting a Flack/Stella interrogation scene - I'm personally cheering, 'cause I haven't seen one of those in a while :lol:

 

That's one thing I don't like about fandom - shipping wars. I think it happens in every fandom - but luckily we don't have much of that drama here! Everybody can play in their own sandbox and still get along with people from other sandboxes.

Sometimes this is definitely the case - but, sometimes two characters are linked very closely, and there's overlap. Even if it's not necessarily about snagging the dream boyfriend/girlfriend, sometimes it could just be about something as simple as the character getting what he/she wants. If, in HP for example, Ginny is in love with Harry, if someone identifies a bit too closely with Ginny, it might be insulting for someone to consider that Harry might choose to be with anybody else or whatever. I mean, it's always more complicated than just an example or two, but you know what I mean.

The appeal of an actor, especially a popular young actor, can never be underestimated. :lol: There are a lot of 'hot' guys that leave me scratching my head when I see women (or young girls) fanning themselves over them. (Rob Pattinson is that way for me - I just don't get it. :wtf And as for the characters themselves - there are always people who feel drawn to a character for some reason or another, be they the perfect boyfriend or not. (Speaking of RPattz - it boggles my mind that people consider Edward Cullen the ideal boyfriend, but to each his/her own. *shrug*)

Carmine is hot. Danny is an attractive, interesting, passionate character - albeit a flawed one. It doesn't always happen that fans feel so intensely drawn to a character for these reasons, but it does happen. (And for the other characters/actors as well, of course.)

Anywho...

I can't remember off the top of my head, but Hill's tweets made it sound like we'd be getting some good team scenes and whatnot. I'm looking forward to seeing certain characters interact, and hopefully we'll get to see all of the different combinations from the get-go this season.

I'm biased, but I want to see some uniquely-Adam scenes with the others. I want to see Adam and Hawkes have a nerdy scene where they crack the case, and I want to see Adam be awkward but awesome around Mac (where Mac would praise his awesomeness, of course), and I'd love to see Adam interact with Flack again, and OMG, I want an Adam/Sid scene...

 

That's why I actually created an account for this site. Most of them I just read once in awhile. This site has the most interaction without all the drama. It's a fun site.

I love Flack and Stella together. They have a good friendship and I think they play off each other well. I also like Flack and Danny. Their scenes really make me laugh. With Danny in a wheelchair and Flack throwing himself into work I hope we still get to see some of their lighter moments this season.

 

Hmmm...actually, this was really clarifying, and shed some light on something that's always puzzled me about the D/L-fan (not all fans, but quite a few) reaction to "Right Next Door". Yeah, it makes total sense that things about the self-insert character would overlap this way; it brought to mind Twilight (while we're on the brief subject of RPattz ), because that's the ultimate self-insert-for-romance example. But the few things I've seen from Twilight fandom indicate that the fans get all hysterical when Edward Cullen is being insulted - which you don't really often see for either H/G or D/L. But like you said about Ginny-identifiers possibly finding it insulting to consider Harry with someone other than Ginny...had Harry actually chosen someone other than Ginny, as he did for a while (and kind of like what Danny did with Rikki), there probably would've been tons more backlash against Harry from H/G fans.

(I realize you already said most of this in your earlier post, sorry, it's only really starting to make sense now :lol:.) That does indicate that there's at least two people possibly drawing self-inserting fans...but wouldn't it suggest that the character the fan is over-identifying with is the stronger draw? Since their fan-girl/fan-boy-love is somewhat conditional for the boyfriend-character? I mean, I remember when I used to hang around in the Harry/Draco slash section of the HP fandom...a lot of the most passionate Harry/Draco fans out there were also the biggest Harry-bashers in the fandom. Which made no sense to me then, but well, is not hard to see why now. The majority of Harry/Draco fans were ardent Draco-supporters, Harry and Draco were obviously mortal enemies in the book, and Harry treated Draco as such (Draco did the same if not worse, but it didn't seem to matter).

I can actually see why people might find Rob Pattinson good-looking (I've seen him in other things long before Twilight ), but Edward Cullen....*shudder* I don't get it either.

Yes for the added-team scenes!! :lol: Actually, the first slide I saw on Spoiler TV pretty much implied that Adam and Flack were in the scene together, before Flack goes off to find Stella. It's possible they might've just been passing in the hallway, but I'm optimistic! The scenes they've had together so far are so great.

Scenes with Flack and pretty much anyone are really excellent (even Flack/Mac scenes, though I'm getting a little bored with those because there are so many), imo. I love Flack and Stella scenes, but I don't think we've actually seen one where they interrogate a suspect together in...ack, since Season 4, I think. And they're at their best when they're interrogating suspects together...it's not that I'm willing to give up the Flack/Danny interrogations (because they're just flat-out hilarious), but still, it'll be nice to see the Flack/Stella interrogation dynamic again.