PerfectAnomaly
Resident Smart Ass
Did anyone else find it odd that Danny said "THE baby" instead of "OUR baby" or even "MY baby?" I just rewatched the episode and thought that was really bizzare.
Grade "Communication Breakdown"
- Thread starter Top41
- Start date
I can definitely understand that - I'm half Filipino and half Irish, but I can barely understand Tagalog (I'm better with Visayan) and Irish Gaelic. I can only have simple conversations in Tagalog, and the only things I remember clearly from Irish Gaelic are extremely common phrases and profanity, lol.
I don't think it would be unrealistic for them to at least speak some of the more common languages, though. I took four years of Spanish; my boyfriend took three years of French. So I think it's not very far-fetched that Adam might know Spanish, since he's from Arizona, or that Hawkes might know some obscure language(s), since he's a prodigy.
Also, living in a big city (San Francisco), I've been introduced to random tidbits of languages - everything from Italian to Mandarin Chinese. I'm not fluent in any of them, but I've definitely picked up a few words and phrases. So I imagine it is (or can be, depending on where you live) similar in New York.
He's a bloke, Im more surprised he isn't saying 'it', even continuing after she is born.
racefh853629
Pathologist
As soon as I read this, the only thing I could think of was "Dispo Day" on CSI:Miami, where Horatio used that very same terminology to prove that the baby in the car didn't belong to the woman driver...
It is rather peculiar...
addictedtoSpeed
Judge
That's for sure!! :lol:
roximonoxide
Lab Technician
Please. Chief Delaware was not Indian. Indians come from India.
And I would suspect a man with a medical degree probably knows what keratin is.
Last edited:
C-
An awful, sledgehammer mess of an episode! Seriously, there was not one subtle element here, and it made the episode clunky and not fun to watch. I find it amusing that after all the upper class crime we've seen over the years in CSI: NY, suddenly one episode is crammed full of non-English speaking folks!
The case was boring and far-fetched, especially with the stray bullet that happens to hit the already dead guy. On a train! Talk about a lucky shot.
And Danny's whole fixation on the baby name was overdone as well. It was cute, but the fact that he was so sure it was going to be a boy immediately clued us in that it was a girl.
And of course, the Canon Sue Monroe is having a girl. Of course she is. I swear, this whole storyline is ripped from bad fanfic. :lol:
Maybe if it was an isolated incident, I'd feel that way, too. But it's just one example among many--and even Mac flat out asked Danny if he had talked to Lindsay about the names. Surprise, surprise--Danny answered no. And then Lindsay's text comes in--she doesn't even call to tell the guy the sex of their baby. All this in an episode entitled "Communication Breakdown"? If it's unintentional, the writers are being obtuse...and I don't think they're obtuse.
I hadn't even connected it to the name before coming in here, but yeah, that makes a world of sense.
If Danny weren't practically jumping up and down about the prospect of being a dad, I might find it suspect, but the guy is over the moon about this baby.
An awful, sledgehammer mess of an episode! Seriously, there was not one subtle element here, and it made the episode clunky and not fun to watch. I find it amusing that after all the upper class crime we've seen over the years in CSI: NY, suddenly one episode is crammed full of non-English speaking folks!
The case was boring and far-fetched, especially with the stray bullet that happens to hit the already dead guy. On a train! Talk about a lucky shot.
And Danny's whole fixation on the baby name was overdone as well. It was cute, but the fact that he was so sure it was going to be a boy immediately clued us in that it was a girl.
And of course, the Canon Sue Monroe is having a girl. Of course she is. I swear, this whole storyline is ripped from bad fanfic. :lol:
Maybe if it was an isolated incident, I'd feel that way, too. But it's just one example among many--and even Mac flat out asked Danny if he had talked to Lindsay about the names. Surprise, surprise--Danny answered no. And then Lindsay's text comes in--she doesn't even call to tell the guy the sex of their baby. All this in an episode entitled "Communication Breakdown"? If it's unintentional, the writers are being obtuse...and I don't think they're obtuse.
I hadn't even connected it to the name before coming in here, but yeah, that makes a world of sense.
If Danny weren't practically jumping up and down about the prospect of being a dad, I might find it suspect, but the guy is over the moon about this baby.
Half
CSI Level Two
Ah, I'm sorry, I misunderstood. I didn't realize that you were saying that the French was a positive.I know thatMaybe I'm misunderstanding your post, but what's wrong with Angell speaking French? Emmanuelle Vaugier is Canadian, so it's not like it came completely out of left field.
In my post I figure one posotice scene of this episode is that angell speak french
I think it"s so grat
roximonoxide brings up a good point. This episode was entirely about communication. In some ways, even the murder itself stemmed from what was in essence a miscommunication about what to do with the land. The fact that Danny and Lindsay seemingly fail to communicate is a big indicator light, one that suggests that we're in for the long haul, folks.
When I first saw CSI:NY, I thought Hill was Indian, or at least part Indian. It was when he smiled, I think, that made me think so.
Hill is just beautiful, that's what Hill is. :adore:
Interesting comments about the title and the various communication issues within the episode, guys. Sometimes I think about the episode titles (when they're really obvious), and sometimes I don't give it much thought - it's always interesting when they manage to work in various smaller things that relate to the title in addition to the major case.
Interesting comments about the title and the various communication issues within the episode, guys.
Sometimes I think about the episode titles (when they're really obvious), and sometimes I don't give it much thought - it's always interesting when they manage to work in various smaller things that relate to the title in addition to the major case.
mandy9578
CSI Level Two
:lol: :lol: :lol:Well, the first thing I thought of when I watched it was, "Wow, the writers suck." I'm sorry, but honestly, Filipinos don't say 'minamahal kita' anymore. It's so old, and that couple looked really young. My cousin laughed when I told her... (We're Filipino). Anyways, then I thought of how stupid the whole train thing was. It was like the writers finally realized that they weren't really representing many ethnic minorities, and so just decided to dump a whole bunch of them on a train.
The writers may have done their research on the language but it wasn't done well enough. They may have gotten the language right but they didn't take into consideration how language is used in everyday conversations. They forgot how colloquialism plays a big part in any conversation. It's not that the phrases were old, it's just that they were too formal to use. Heck, even my grandparents wouldn't use those phrases! :lol: Seriously, you wouldn't catch me dead using those phrases!
BTW, it was a cringe-inducing moment seeing that Pinoy couple say those things to each other. No one says that nowadays. :lol:I get what you are both saying. I'm of mixed heritage as well and have been exposed to different cultures and languages growing up. It's not just living in such a culturally-diverse city that can account for what you guys are saying. Take into account exposure to media like movies, books and television.
Half
CSI Level Two
I understand what you all are saying about the different languages. But really, what do I know? Besides English the only thing I can kind of speak is Latin, and that's a dead language that no one speaks. (Eh, I know the two most useful phrases of Spanish and French I'll ever need to know, although I can't spell them: No hablo espanol. No parlon francais. One year of French and about three years of Spanish, and that's basically all I can say. XD) Heck, I'm Lithuanian and I didn't even know Lithuanian had their own language. Lithuanian, Czech, Polish, Scotch, Irish, American. Emphasis on American. Although my great-grandmother immigrated from Scotland. Why am I even telling you this. :lol:
Huh. Lots of the reviews echo things I completely agree with, and yet lots of people seemed to love the ep all the same.
Man. The writers don't think much of the viewing public's ability to put things together now do they. A little subtlety and nuance are simply beyond us? Give us a shot sometime. Please. Pretty pretty puh-lee-hee-eaaaaase. :censored:
Communications Breakdown felt like an episode of Scooby Doo. CSINY, Mystery Inc: NY Discovers Diversity. Jinkies.
The title in hindsight comes across as a really bad ironic in joke. A WTF eppie, in how did this ever make it to air :lol: Whoosh.
First, PTB, how's about managing to flavour the show using the identity of New York City, and the cultural mosaic that makes it up, continuously, from one show to the next? It's like you belatedly take note of things and then exasperatedly acknowledge them by stuffing it all into one ep, and in as unsubtle a fashion as possible. What results is that it stands out as atypical instead of being the norm. That's why it's laughable. Concerns of Lindsay being pregnant working with lab chemicals was one such example. This was finally 'addressed' at one point by having Stella be suddenly possessed by a workplace health and safety orientation presentation when Lindsay's Invisible Friend was all scrunched and worried. This week, of course it applies to the recognizing how diverse the population of New york City is. This ep was supposedly set in Queens, yes, but it really missed an opportunity to highlight that more and take advantage of it. This coulda been a way to really tell a story that derived from no place but New York. As it was, land disputes notwithstanding, this still felt rather anonymously placed. Coulda been any number of big cities. And talk about lacking subtlety. People have been harping on the fact that only the glossy or politically well connected get featured on NY, and here we get the rest of the city somehow stuffed into one subway train. Way to acknowledge and beat something into the ground, before then sweeping up the pulverized residue and tossing it into Continuity's Blackhole Dustbin never to be spoken of again.
Okay. onto the ep as a whole.
Scooby Doo I says. Light. Predictable. Unchallenging. Eye-rolling. Somehow enjoyable if you eat enough scooby snacks. Perplexing if your neurons happen to fire off at all, no matter how inadvertantly.
A mysterious Native American somehow winds up dead on the L7 train. Our merry band offers to wade thru the sudden emergence of a substantial ethnic presence, compiled all but two by two for our viewing pleasure, armed with ubergadetry in order to solve the mystery, but wind up finding more than they bargained for just as they thought they'd put the nail in the proverbial coffin. I mean, it was a straight up shooting, right...? A case solved in the first ten minutes? Oh but wait...
A bullet fired from a .22 caliber by an angry father at his daughter's boyfriend goes out the window, traverses a city block, pierces the window of a moving subway train to land in the x-ring dead center of the very unlucky member of the mysterious Montiquan tribe without hitting anyone or anything else on the way. I suppose that premise coulda been worse. I suppose it coulda been an underground subway car as opposed to an elevated train car that the father hit from his window with a pistol... A rifle woulda been overkill, probably woulda blasted the car from the tracks. I mean, c'mon. Seriously. What Is Up with TPTB's obsession with magic bullet shots? Messer's shot in 5.17, and now this? This one coulda stopped for a light, asked for directions, bought a hotdog, and still hit the bullseye... Jeez :lol:
*Zoinks.* Sid says something's BioHinky! His Lithuanian grandmother would be proud. Love Sid. The bullet, which was sitting intact and protruding from the wound for easy extraction by fingers alone, was not what killed our ambassador into the storyline of cultural politics. No. No, it was a whale that got him.
The victim had mysterious baleen in his bowel and mysterious colours in his lungs. His journals were filled with a mysterious and dying language found amidst mysterious cultural artifacts being housed in a mundane hotel room, staffed by an unmysteriously foreshadowed IT technician and a mysteriously diligent housekeeping service. He seems to be the chief and has been engaged in several heated ongoing land disputes in New York City... *ruh-roh...*
Along the way we discover (complete with illustrations) that the murder weapon is more typically used to kill wolves than people, and is also 300 years old. ('Cos NYPD carbon dates all it's murder weapons, right?) We also discover mysterious fragments of Irish ashwood from - wait for it, wait for iiiiit, Ireland, ...wielded by a mad non-Irish Scotsman who was happy enough to speak Irish but refused to dampen his accent otherwise for the happy party of diversity. Yep, I noticed the accent too. Damn neurons :lol:
Oo! Gadgetry! ...more ubertechie slickness in a high end translator (that conveniently begins and ends the episode with Flack) and another hi-res virtual body CT Scan that had Sheldon tossing the victim's internal organs about in a fashion that woulda had him canned as an ME. :wtf: :lol: Of course, this is the same show that had Mac picking blood droplets out of the air at some point. Add the return of the thermal imaging iphone thingy. Don't matter how much of that's based on existing technology, but is there any city police lab that's really likelyto have accrued that much high end technology? I thought they couldn't even afford to keep Adam, at one point? Yeah, all that just screams NYPD to me. But I guess a device like that will pay for itself in product placement won't it.
Then, the dastardly villain, the self monogrammed Game Weasel, is tracked down by our bearded friend from the Tech Republic sniffing packets, and is unmasked as not just yer average baddie but * twizt * ...another member of one of the hitherto low-profile Montiquan tribe. The intrepid gang cuts the lock off the warehouse to sneak inside to apprehend this miscreant only to have the lights mysteriously go out necessitating the unarmed perp morph into a blind dayglo orange blob that gets popped in the nose by Mac, who's either had enough or just wanted to pop someone in the nose. By that point I wanted to. Probably Messer, to be honest :lol: At least he left the babyname book back at the labs. Or mebbe it was a pocketpaperback? And way to go Messer. Lemme guess, you thought you saw an interesting possible name on the item on the floor and kicked it as you bent to get a better look.
So there ya have it. A scoobster heritage mystery complete with a moral message and multicultural diversity, who's population we find will have added to it a baby girl before season's end. But where's the supernatural element, you ask? The hint of the inexplicable unmasked as purely human? Well, how about the mysterious telepathic and overbearing presence of Lindsay, mentioned more since she left than when she was here, and the doppelganger masquerading as Danny? WTF's happening to you Danny? Jeez. That includes the retro-tred parallel now of using the Godfather II to poke at Danny's family instead of them being a long line of career cops for five minutes. And man, Danny didn't look happy about finding out he's gonna have a little girl... Oh, and Danno? One last thing. Donchu be mocking Sheldon's name...
Look. I liked that Stella and Sheldon got some good airtime. I liked that TPTB, however hamfisted, branched out to acknowledge the greater population of NYC. Even if it was in service of another preachy storyline that had Stella lamenting cultural issues and Mac offering weird fortune cookie dialogue to the perp in question. I think that could become a new drinking game. Every time Mac says "I promise you...'x' ..." before threatening or patronizing someone in interrogation.
I liked Sid. I liked Adam. I liked Flack. Don Flack. Just the Man everyone wants to see. Speaking Gaelic. Saying Schmutz. Whatever. I liked the subtitles. I liked Angell. I liked Angell speaking French. I liked Flack's comment to her as he heard her doing so. I even liked the ending between them, to a point. I know, I do realize that the use of the translator babblefish (yes, yay H2G2) by Flack both started and ended the eppie, how very um, cyclical, but I think this is a perfect example of TPTB losing out on the characters to ubertechie toys. They just hadda have him push the button to play it out didn't they.
I think it woulda been more fun if Angell had simply tweaked a playful eyebrow at Don handing the device back over and it cutting to black just as Don was gonna listen to it, or mebbe he plugs in an earphone and we simply see his reaction. The way it played out took the moment away from the characters and gave it to a tech toy with a buzzkill voice. Why? I guess the writers just thought the line about international relations was simply too good to throw away? It wasn't that good a line. It coulda been a better scene with more of the subtext they'd displayed busting out game in the cruiser way back. It was cute, but again, hamfisted, and not in the same league they'd previously achieved.
Basically I liked the characters and was only blandly occupied by the story. I can't pinpoint what it is, but there's no stride that's been hit this season. I have my own Dear Writers draft kicking around and everytime I think it's done another ep informs something new. Mebbe someday I'll finish it.
Note to TPTB: Do not kill Angell or Adam. Please. Please please please. They are two characters who manage to bring something fresh to the show as opposed to characters having the life leeched outta them. Graded C. You guys might get away with writing like this sorta thing more often if it wasn't for us meddling viewers...
Sigh. Looking forward to next week? Rerun? Well. Whatever. Mebbe I'll finally get that letter done.
Man. The writers don't think much of the viewing public's ability to put things together now do they. A little subtlety and nuance are simply beyond us? Give us a shot sometime. Please. Pretty pretty puh-lee-hee-eaaaaase. :censored:
Communications Breakdown felt like an episode of Scooby Doo. CSINY, Mystery Inc: NY Discovers Diversity. Jinkies.
The title in hindsight comes across as a really bad ironic in joke. A WTF eppie, in how did this ever make it to air :lol: Whoosh.
First, PTB, how's about managing to flavour the show using the identity of New York City, and the cultural mosaic that makes it up, continuously, from one show to the next? It's like you belatedly take note of things and then exasperatedly acknowledge them by stuffing it all into one ep, and in as unsubtle a fashion as possible. What results is that it stands out as atypical instead of being the norm. That's why it's laughable. Concerns of Lindsay being pregnant working with lab chemicals was one such example. This was finally 'addressed' at one point by having Stella be suddenly possessed by a workplace health and safety orientation presentation when Lindsay's Invisible Friend was all scrunched and worried. This week, of course it applies to the recognizing how diverse the population of New york City is. This ep was supposedly set in Queens, yes, but it really missed an opportunity to highlight that more and take advantage of it. This coulda been a way to really tell a story that derived from no place but New York. As it was, land disputes notwithstanding, this still felt rather anonymously placed. Coulda been any number of big cities. And talk about lacking subtlety. People have been harping on the fact that only the glossy or politically well connected get featured on NY, and here we get the rest of the city somehow stuffed into one subway train. Way to acknowledge and beat something into the ground, before then sweeping up the pulverized residue and tossing it into Continuity's Blackhole Dustbin never to be spoken of again.
Okay. onto the ep as a whole.
Scooby Doo I says. Light. Predictable. Unchallenging. Eye-rolling. Somehow enjoyable if you eat enough scooby snacks. Perplexing if your neurons happen to fire off at all, no matter how inadvertantly.
A mysterious Native American somehow winds up dead on the L7 train. Our merry band offers to wade thru the sudden emergence of a substantial ethnic presence, compiled all but two by two for our viewing pleasure, armed with ubergadetry in order to solve the mystery, but wind up finding more than they bargained for just as they thought they'd put the nail in the proverbial coffin. I mean, it was a straight up shooting, right...? A case solved in the first ten minutes? Oh but wait...
A bullet fired from a .22 caliber by an angry father at his daughter's boyfriend goes out the window, traverses a city block, pierces the window of a moving subway train to land in the x-ring dead center of the very unlucky member of the mysterious Montiquan tribe without hitting anyone or anything else on the way. I suppose that premise coulda been worse. I suppose it coulda been an underground subway car as opposed to an elevated train car that the father hit from his window with a pistol... A rifle woulda been overkill, probably woulda blasted the car from the tracks. I mean, c'mon. Seriously. What Is Up with TPTB's obsession with magic bullet shots? Messer's shot in 5.17, and now this? This one coulda stopped for a light, asked for directions, bought a hotdog, and still hit the bullseye... Jeez :lol:
*Zoinks.* Sid says something's BioHinky! His Lithuanian grandmother would be proud
. Love Sid. The bullet, which was sitting intact and protruding from the wound for easy extraction by fingers alone, was not what killed our ambassador into the storyline of cultural politics. No. No, it was a whale that got him. The victim had mysterious baleen in his bowel and mysterious colours in his lungs. His journals were filled with a mysterious and dying language found amidst mysterious cultural artifacts being housed in a mundane hotel room, staffed by an unmysteriously foreshadowed IT technician and a mysteriously diligent housekeeping service. He seems to be the chief and has been engaged in several heated ongoing land disputes in New York City... *ruh-roh...*
Along the way we discover (complete with illustrations) that the murder weapon is more typically used to kill wolves than people, and is also 300 years old. ('Cos NYPD carbon dates all it's murder weapons, right?) We also discover mysterious fragments of Irish ashwood from - wait for it, wait for iiiiit, Ireland, ...wielded by a mad non-Irish Scotsman who was happy enough to speak Irish but refused to dampen his accent otherwise for the happy party of diversity. Yep, I noticed the accent too. Damn neurons :lol:
Oo! Gadgetry! ...more ubertechie slickness in a high end translator (that conveniently begins and ends the episode with Flack) and another hi-res virtual body CT Scan that had Sheldon tossing the victim's internal organs about in a fashion that woulda had him canned as an ME. :wtf: :lol: Of course, this is the same show that had Mac picking blood droplets out of the air at some point. Add the return of the thermal imaging iphone thingy. Don't matter how much of that's based on existing technology, but is there any city police lab that's really likelyto have accrued that much high end technology? I thought they couldn't even afford to keep Adam, at one point? Yeah, all that just screams NYPD to me. But I guess a device like that will pay for itself in product placement won't it.
Then, the dastardly villain, the self monogrammed Game Weasel, is tracked down by our bearded friend from the Tech Republic sniffing packets, and is unmasked as not just yer average baddie but * twizt * ...another member of one of the hitherto low-profile Montiquan tribe. The intrepid gang cuts the lock off the warehouse to sneak inside to apprehend this miscreant only to have the lights mysteriously go out necessitating the unarmed perp morph into a blind dayglo orange blob that gets popped in the nose by Mac, who's either had enough or just wanted to pop someone in the nose. By that point I wanted to. Probably Messer, to be honest :lol: At least he left the babyname book back at the labs. Or mebbe it was a pocketpaperback? And way to go Messer. Lemme guess, you thought you saw an interesting possible name on the item on the floor and kicked it as you bent to get a better look.
So there ya have it. A scoobster heritage mystery complete with a moral message and multicultural diversity, who's population we find will have added to it a baby girl before season's end. But where's the supernatural element, you ask? The hint of the inexplicable unmasked as purely human? Well, how about the mysterious telepathic and overbearing presence of Lindsay, mentioned more since she left than when she was here, and the doppelganger masquerading as Danny? WTF's happening to you Danny? Jeez. That includes the retro-tred parallel now of using the Godfather II to poke at Danny's family instead of them being a long line of career cops for five minutes. And man, Danny didn't look happy about finding out he's gonna have a little girl... Oh, and Danno? One last thing. Donchu be mocking Sheldon's name...
Look. I liked that Stella and Sheldon got some good airtime. I liked that TPTB, however hamfisted, branched out to acknowledge the greater population of NYC. Even if it was in service of another preachy storyline that had Stella lamenting cultural issues and Mac offering weird fortune cookie dialogue to the perp in question. I think that could become a new drinking game. Every time Mac says "I promise you...'x' ..." before threatening or patronizing someone in interrogation.
I liked Sid. I liked Adam. I liked Flack. Don Flack. Just the Man everyone wants to see. Speaking Gaelic. Saying Schmutz. Whatever. I liked the subtitles. I liked Angell. I liked Angell speaking French. I liked Flack's comment to her as he heard her doing so. I even liked the ending between them, to a point. I know, I do realize that the use of the translator babblefish (yes, yay H2G2) by Flack both started and ended the eppie, how very um, cyclical, but I think this is a perfect example of TPTB losing out on the characters to ubertechie toys. They just hadda have him push the button to play it out didn't they.
I think it woulda been more fun if Angell had simply tweaked a playful eyebrow at Don handing the device back over and it cutting to black just as Don was gonna listen to it, or mebbe he plugs in an earphone and we simply see his reaction. The way it played out took the moment away from the characters and gave it to a tech toy with a buzzkill voice. Why? I guess the writers just thought the line about international relations was simply too good to throw away? It wasn't that good a line. It coulda been a better scene with more of the subtext they'd displayed busting out game in the cruiser way back. It was cute, but again, hamfisted, and not in the same league they'd previously achieved.
Basically I liked the characters and was only blandly occupied by the story. I can't pinpoint what it is, but there's no stride that's been hit this season. I have my own Dear Writers draft kicking around and everytime I think it's done another ep informs something new. Mebbe someday I'll finish it.
Note to TPTB: Do not kill Angell or Adam. Please. Please please please. They are two characters who manage to bring something fresh to the show as opposed to characters having the life leeched outta them. Graded C. You guys might get away with writing like this sorta thing more often if it wasn't for us meddling viewers...
Sigh. Looking forward to next week? Rerun? Well. Whatever. Mebbe I'll finally get that letter done.
roximonoxide
Lab Technician
Bahahaha! :lol:
Lest we forget the im-PECK-able aim of local carrion birds we witnessed a few eps ago.
It's one thing when they do the occasional case deal with a long shot, or oddity death scenario, but it happens so bloody often here...Great review though!:lol: I can so picture the team this way. Mac is Freddie the straight arrow jagoff with the neckerchief, Stella obviously Daphne, that would make Lindsay Velma of course, and while I'd normally peg Danny as Shaggy, it's too easy for me to hear "ruh-roh" coming out of his mouth, so I'd give Danny the role of Scoob. :lol:
Lest we forget the im-PECK-able aim of local carrion birds we witnessed a few eps ago.
Great review though!:lol: I can so picture the team this way. Mac is Freddie the straight arrow jagoff with the neckerchief, Stella obviously Daphne, that would make Lindsay Velma of course, and while I'd normally peg Danny as Shaggy, it's too easy for me to hear "ruh-roh" coming out of his mouth, so I'd give Danny the role of Scoob. :lol:
So I guess that leaves Hawkes to be Shaggy.
...whoa, that image totally just blew my mind.