Dear Writers. Dear TPTB, past and present producers, execs, show-runners, studio and network keiblers, staff, artists, and absolutely all da crew. Thank you for CSI:NY. For managing to put together a series inspite of whatever brambles and mire plague you daily.
Dear Writers. You've been getting all sorts of crap. And I'd like to think it could and should be shared around. So. Inclusively of all those relevant. Dear TPTB. This letter is for you.
I took the time to read thru the entirety of this thread. Many points arise repeatedly, even across several seasons. Nice to know progress is being made
. There are many sharp, funny and insightful posts. If I thought I had space in my character limit I would point out some in particular I think are very well spoken. Apologies if I happen to cover some of the same ground. Kick back and relax, this is gonna take a few minutes to get thru.
There are reasons why I used to follow this show over not just Vegas and Miami, but other shows in general. New York is one I got in on at the ground floor. Outside the building even. While it was still shopping for neighborhoods. I curiously followed it's development, from the day it was announced a third in the franchise was gonna be made. Followed as it started to knit itself together, just to see how it would be done. Watched deciding where it would make it's home to see how that would inform it's identity, how that would set itself apart from its siblings. The casting was next, to see who would be both subjects and storytellers. What endeared the show to me in season one was that it felt like it was just doing it's own thing. I loved the style, the design of it, the feel of places having a history and existence outside the NYPD. You've got no tether now. Slickness is not an anchor, the design is more anonymous. I liked the darkness of the show, the edge and grittiness to it's tone and to the stories told. Neither was it devoid of humor or wit. I liked the oft dark and off-beat take on things, of the characters, dialogue, interactions, stories. I really liked the air of quiet confidence and independence. No pandering.
I hafta tell you, I've wondered if S1 mighta been just a little ahead of it's time, or wasn't given the opportunity to see if that time could have been. CBS stuck it's nose in and requested changes. Brightening things up, on a few different levels, seemed to take place at the expense of the dark altogether, instead of letting them exist side by side. I just think a part of the soul of the show was burned away in doing so, and hasn't been seen or replenished since.
In 2004 NY was the dark show of the three. You dared to reference a city still digging itself out from under fallen towers (and among the most poignant moments were those that stemmed from Mac's loss of Claire). You were the gritty show doing dark storylines talking about hard things that ordinary, everyday people suffered. There was no Criminal Minds at the time, for example, and I hafta wonder now if that show would have been picked up then, a year or so earlier, even if it had crossed the right desk. We'll never know. I'm only saying that a lot has changed in the TV landscape in the past five years, both network and cable-wise. I also wonder that if NY hadn't been a part of the CSI juggernaut, if CBS would have given it leeway to develop at all, mandated changes or not. Some things remain stolidly the same.
Season Two felt sorta like CBS insisted on hiring a stylist who had their own agenda and notions of what would best keep up with fashion. S3 fared a little better, S4 was a hoover save one or two eps, and S5 hasn't raised it's game. Rollercoaster consistency.
You're hemorrhaging in the worst way. Credibility, respect, cohesion, vision, identity. There's a line from Steve Martin's
Picasso at the Lapin Agile where a character looking to buy art says
"...show me what you've got, taste is no object..." Might make an interesting alternative to PV's t-shirts. At least consider it for a screensaver...?
You've been trying so many things to retain your cachet. It's sucking the life outta what was a great show filled with promise. Now a mediocre one that hasn't nearly kept apace, and flirting with base jumping into being abominably laughable in some respects.
I'd love a balance between character and crime solving. I don't buy that procedurals can't have compelling characters, can't have development beyond hooks, can't have arcs and continuity outside an episodic box. Of course the characters hafta be interesting. Why else wouldja watch. For the gagetry? For the astoundingly cunning plot twists? For the stunt casting? To see how some bastard's gonna get killed in a given week? Get outta here. The stakes have never been the murders on NY, the stakes are solving them (or not), the what-if scenarios these people are faced with weekly. I need to be interested in those who poke around; the cases you come up with will not be a draw in themselves. That said, they do need to be challenging. If I'm bored and the characters are being run thru inanities just to fill an hour, it's all a waste.
I don't think it's beyond NY to show that what the characters are engaged in daily has an impact and an emotional resonance. I think one of the reasons everyone talks about the characters so extensively is because they are the show's ongoing saving grace. The soul of the show used to be a gritty New York itself, the heart of it was the characters. They're now the only remaining redeeming elements of a show that otherwise feels increasingly hit and miss the longer it goes on.
There are things I like about Season 5. The introduction of the deliberate three-episode guest arc, and plotlines that exist beyond single episodes were good things this season. I hope they spark new possibilities. I think they allow the feeling of a larger world for NY; for more interesting characters to be brought in and who can have a greater impact for that extended involvement; for an evolution in storytelling formats; might also be more enticing to guest actors, more interesting to viewers in ways different from cameos and open-ended recurring appearances. Might demand or at least enable better writing and scenarios. Might even go some way to regenerating credibility by resolving mini-arcs within a season, whereas you've been so abysmally remiss where larger continuity has been concerned. So many details, so little time, I know, but I feel the success of a show is informed by the details that color the world and the characters. Strip all that away or let it slide and what's left is rather insipid and generic. The most lavish production can't hide that kind of hollowness. More forward thinking like this, please.
This is running long, I know. I'll move along to my current wishlist.
Stop Stunt Casting. I'm talking about the blatant trawling to ride coat-tails of others, in order to try and increase some sort of perceived kewl factor. You have managed some truly good guest appearances (Marlee Matlin, Edward Furlong, Craig T. Nelson, Julia Ormond, Elias Koteas, I expect Ed Asner to knock it out of the park), some quirky and fun ones (John MacEnroe, Nelly), and those who suprised by doing reasonably well (Criss Angel). Occasional is fun. As a pursuit and practice?
I have a problem when appearances are overhyped and the show takes a back seat to them. (Are you worried that no one will recognize the bulk of your guests, why they're famous and why their being on the show is such a friggin coup? That your efforts to 'broaden your appeal' would be in fact wasted...?) There is no rabbit fuzzy and adorable enough to be pulled out of your magic hat that will elevate an average show. (Not even the one from the recent animated short,
Presto, though in a way I can see you guys as the magician reaching around to try and find something that will work... :lol
Ease up on what are essentially Stunt Crimes and Homicides. Killing people in the most unique and obscure ways just to try and be different. Here & there it's fun and quirky, but it's like you're trying to outdo yourselves. Well-written is always better than novelty! How often can I repeat that sentiment. Not everyone hasta die by unconventional means. The CSI office does not reside next to Scully and Mulder's, where they only get calls to the oddest cases. (Everyone's gotta have a time machine in their attic? Okay, I kinda liked that bit. :lol
But ya know, sometimes people just get stabbed, strangled, even shot. Like by a .22 pistol shot from the doorway of a room inside an apartment out a window across traffic and into a moving elevated subway car...
It's like the way people die is more important than why they were killed. I know, it's a puzzle solving show, but that includes motive as well as method. Emotional resonance, remember?
Stop with Stunt Solutions. It cannot replace good writing. (Familiar sentiment?) Stop with obscure, conveniently unique evidence, let's say. Like, a seed pod that's got a fungal spore that derives from only one soil blend infused with a mix of pollution and NYC Public Works' Dept.'s secret special blend of herbs and spices spread lovingly over blooms in Central Park only two weeks of the year but only if it rains while a particular parade is marching by who's participants are all stilt walkers who tie their bindings counterclockwise unless they are left handed in which case one of them tripped, spilt an energy drink, bend to retrieve the empty, fell over squishing vegetation transferring sequins and making odd impressions in the ground, crashing into a shopping cart rally and interupting a jousting competition, causing a shower of peculiar wood splinters amid the bruha from a place where Irishmen sound like Scotsmen but were in point of fact made by some underpriviledged schlep in China yet were illegally imported by some putz casting away in a shipping container in order to save on airfare, which is just as well seeing as your luggage would otherwise get hijacked and stuffed with bloody dirty laundry and air marshals get shot by stuffed panda toys, so you looked online to track them and chased a white rabbit on a hoverboard thru three dimensional puzzles made from paper airplanes by someone smoking a turnip bong, watching a barge moving a house up the Hudson while rapelling down Lady Liberty and checking voicemail at 3:33 everyday to hear that the crime scene itself was compromised because a third of the NYPD had blu flu so what the hell does it matter anyways but hey a partial fingerprint on a pez dispenser came back to an unknown donor (what, I was hungry, and bored) and a three dimensional CT scan that spilled it's poor little guts then revealed that the seed pod in question had mad cow disease, and you know there's only one way that happens, when Seymour or Pino feeds the plants, so let's go to Laughing Larry's lil shop of horrors to flip a coin and arrest one, and thanks for all your hard work, btw, couldn't have done it without da wonders of science... Whaddaya mean it'll never hold up in court? How about teevee? Well. That's arright then, innit.
Stunt Technology. Ease up on ubergadgetry and toys. While stunt solutions refer specifically to writing, Ubertechnology refers to a reliance on the combo of production slickness/sparkle factor with convenient leaps that technology may permit the writing to make, whether liberties have been taken or not. It's fun to see from time to time that amazing equipment is being developed and is also in use. It stretches even the most gracious and indulgent viewer to have such so much of it crammed into airtime on a weekly basis. I'd by far prefer a single scene of Adam throwing paper airplanes than a plethora of virtual autopsies. Certainly not something a writer should rely on to advance a story, certainly not something a show should rely on for more kewlosity. Ubertech: a lil dab'll do ya, guys. Resist the network impulse that befalls good things: to take them and break them by excessive hugging and squeezing and calling them George. "Hands! Lemme see your hands! Put. The toys. Down." I know how hard it is. We can get you help if it's needed.
Continuity. C'mon, you knew this was coming. While I like the 3 ep arc this season, it does not excuse a general apathy to overall continuity, or even in simply acknowledging what's come before. What drives me nuts about an inconsistent adherence to material previously written is not just when references are dropped never to be revisited, but when characters are drafted to serve an agenda or a soapbox or story twist, sometimes subverted in ways that run grievously counter to our previous understanding of them. All I'm asking for is a comment or a moment here & there to see that the characters at least carry their experiences with them. Ignoring previous episodes feels like those responsible for the show don't care about what's come before, only the Next Thing. If you guys as writers and creative minds don't care enough to bother to even acknowledge that past material from time to time, then why the hell should we as viewers care at all.
Please show us instead of telling us things, especially telling us things after the fact to fill in gaps left by not showing us things in the first place.
Please use well your cast. You've managed to assemble one of the strongest on tv. And sometimes they look mighty bored. Hard for the rest of us not to follow suit. Let's have more insights and depth and complexity for the characters, and even more moments of interaction between them. Each season has had good moments, but I'm greedy, I want more.
Please temper persecution, political and nemesis storylines. I know the actors and y'all love 'em because it gives ya something dramatic to stretch against. The reason they get up my nose is because they're rarely done in a way that feels like there's anything at stake, so it feels like badgering, not peeling back layers. No challenge other than withstanding the barrage itself. And just about everyone's had one. It's like a fall back way of stirring things up when Ideas run thin.
This is a big one for me, TPTB. You. Cannot. Dictate. Cool. You simply can't. Neither can your marketing department, no matter what they try to tell you. This self-awareness, one couched in a faux-blase nonchanlance, feels so absurd. We know you're checking yourself out as much as you hope everyone else is. Stop worrying if you're Kewl. Somehow you've lost your footing and the show's originating identity by reaching too far outside of it in trying to increase viewership while hemorrhaging the ones you already had.
Please, more subtlety. Put the mallets away. We're generally astute individuals who will catch onto things. We actually like to think. That little vapid box does not substitute for my mind while its light is on. I'd love a realization of being memorably etched by having seen something good, not being beaten about the head with soapboxing, moral platitudes, or by how cool and hip and slick and awesome you are.
Find some way to reclaim or refine an identity and vision for the show. It could be anywhere USA. I now simply accept the premise the show's in NY. It would be nice to feel the show get back into the skin of the city it takes its name and supposedly it's inspiration from. More New York stories.
More edge, even in combination with the slickness that's replaced it as a default. More diversity. More everyday people. You guys do Common People like Shatner singing with Death Cab. Fun, but hard to take seriously. More everyday victims, more ordinary perps. Not everyone has to be Glossy, Spray Tanned, or Important. Some are simply everyday people who get caught up in the damndest things and it turns into the worst day of their lives.
Please keep up the humour, so long as it evolves from the people you've got telling your stories. Sometimes it feels like a collection of one-liners being doled out to display wit and cleverness. They shouldn't feel like they could be interchangeable between characters. Thankfully, most of the time, it's done pretty well. An aside here, ...no more 'boom.' Less is more.
Please resist Soapdom. I haven't minded some of the forays into relationships. The early flirtation between FA was fun. Mac and Peyton generally were handled well, it actually evolved his character. Quinn was an interesting presence. But other moments seem disjointed and unnecessary, like Flack and Angell's outta the blue kiss, and some simply just don't sit well. (I don't have the space to get into how you've used Stella; additionally it will be hard to be pointedly concise about DL, though I'll try, as they've had a far greater impact as a coupling on the show as a whole).
Subtle hints that let chemistry speak for itself are what I appreciate, and scenes that develop characters are an unexpected bonus, given my current faith in you.
I am definitely one of the crowd that feel DL has become a detriment. Over several seasons it's done surprisingly little for either of the characters given how much time has been spent. The screentime devoted to it is not worth my time. There is no other crime drama on television that I can think of where if I choose to spend my time to watch what I'd hope was engaging and reasonably intelligent television that I'd hafta sit thru scenes like they've had in order to get to it.
To finally come to a close here. I'm sorry, I just had so much to say.
Why is NY unique and worth watching over other shows? There used to be answers, and easy ones, for what those things were. The cohesiveness, the tone, the style, the stories, the characters, the cast, the attitude and swagger, the production values, the design. Now, the cast is pretty much the only sustaining element that rises above as everything else feels increasingly generic and perpetually tweaked in efforts to seek ratings or lost along the way.
When I first read PL's sanctioned finale spoilers, I was hopeful and excited by the prospect of real change resulting for Season 6. Instead, with my perpetual grain of salt, it sounds like things will very much remain the same. For a brief moment in time, the show suddenly seemed rife with possibilities. A death could and should mean that substantial changes result. For better or for worse that was indeed the case when Aiden was killed off. A death could and should be a means to reach outside the status quo to shake things up in a big way, and the show needs that now in the worst possible way. Maybe change
will result. But you've got no credit with me.
This season has been an exasperating disappointment. You lost me in S4. I came back post-strike to check out S5 hoping to see a reinvigorated show. Started out well, then reverted to your version of par. I've watched the train-wreckage of S5 simply to try and understand the scope and scale of how it's come about. It's a show I've always wanted to see do well, and it's just never reached a level I thought it could. Would love to think it's still possible.
My glass remains half-full, because I'm good at keeping it that way. Nothing's forever. Maybe good things will come. We'll see what the rest of S5 brings first. The finale is apparently to be penned and directed by some of your most experienced long-term hands. I hope that bodes well, for the conclusion of this season and what the next one will bring.
Best of luck.
EL.
:bolian:
