I'm intrigued by it as well. They made such a huge effort, well of sorts, to bring Shane Casey back, added that episode and got a popular villain back on the show... just to have their plans spoiled by contract negotiations, so it seemed. Sort of ironic, isn't it?
And a pity as well because I don't think they planned for jumping ahead. I hope they didn't, I think that cliffhanger deserves a proper resolution.
Bringing Casey back was one of their ooh-ah bandied lures. I hafta think they'll continue on with resolving the cliff-hanger directly in some way. How they had planned to go about it has probably altered, though. I agree it should get its due. Would make all the preceding eps all the more superfluous if they don't.
That is a lot to cramp into a 45 minute episode... I have a strong feeling that the outcome won't be satisfactory
:lol: Not a lot of elbow room, no. I hope each gets a reasonable accommodation. I would appreciate if it was done in a way that made sense. IE. that the cliff-hanger isn't simply magicked thru NY's Peculiar Brand of Time. What are the odds :lol:. That said, I wasn't keen on the premise nor cliff-hangers in general, and so I'd rather it be wrapped sooner rather than later.
I'd love for Stella's exit not to be addressed in passing but given the weight of attention I as a viewer think it deserves, and think it an opportunity for the show to turn in some moving material. But. Do they develop a case around it, or have that going on incidentally and not tied to a case? How do they work it in?
I'd love for the new character to be given a solid and supported introduction, meaning, a multi-ep integration. They did for Lindsay. They did for Sheldon's transition into the field.
So, in a way, while I hope everything is acknowledged in the premiere, I don't necessarily hope or expect it all to be resolved outright.
Though that lack of progression isn't AB's fault any more than it's MK's fault that Stella sort of stagnated during the past season.
I didna say at all it was. I don't blame the actors for what's written for the characters nor how its written. There are things each have been asked to play that have been frustrating or unengaging.
I only said that Lindsay had potential as a character that has not been realized or developed in a way I have found interesting to watch. Part of the reason I have not found it interesting to watch is due the performance. I'll never know if a different interpretation of what was offered would have either changed how I have felt about the character or if it would have led to different material being developed as a result. Whatever the writing is, performance is far less often part of the equation with regards to other characters for me.
If he has to have a relationship, I don't mind either. I could live with Peyton because it didn't overshadow anything of the show.
But no matter if it were Peyton, Aubrey or Stella, I wouldn't want any more of it. A mentioning here, a mentioning there, so we know he's still with someone if he's got to be with someone (other than Stella) but I wouldn't want anything more than that because if I would, I would be watching a show about Mac and his love life. Yet I've been watching CSI... thought I was watching it anyway
I can't look at Mac's relationship possibilities separate from any other character's material. I agree in that relationships and personal material should remain secondary, and be concisely well integrated when it is addressed. But I also think that if it's going to be included, it should be considered worthy enough to devote airtime to. I think it's better to have a select few well-crafted moments on-screen and not solely rely on conversational allusions.
That's why, while we only knew of Claire thru Mac's words about her (Blink is an ep I'll never forget for his monologue about the beach ball), it was great to have Reed to give Mac another way of dealing with the material, for example. Similarly, moments of interaction among the team were good too. Mrs. Azrael was another great ep, and had a poignant but short scene with Sheldon and Mac about his father. S3 was a good one on several levels in challenging Mac. Reed, Peyton, Gerrard, Sinclair, were all a part of that. I don't feel cases suffered for it, that I recall anyways, been awhile :lol:. I think those recurring characters were integrated well when they were included.
I also do agree that conversational references are a great tool, and additionally are often pleasant surprises when they acknowledge characters often thought to be dropped into the black hole of continuity never to be seen again. But it would also be nice to
see characters thought to have disappointingly dropped into the black hole of continuity never to be seen again.
It wouldn't have been nearly as moving to hear "hey, didja hear about Pino, jeez man, wtf..." than it was to have an ep about him. It's great to hear Flack talk about Sam, Adam about his father, Sheldon about his uncle, Sid about his wife and daughter, but who wouldn't like to have Sam back for an appearance or some set of relevant circumstances to meet the others.
Cliff Angell was another well used character. I also liked Terence making another appearance. I like that characters can help maintain the show's realm. Aubrey could possibly be used in that fashion as an ER doc, as well as being a potential LI.
I wouldn't mind for Sheldon to meet someone. So long as it's concise and precise and well integrated. Don't want the show to be about his love life :lol:. Wasn't keen on Danny & Lindsay. Mostly because I came to feel oversaturated by DL. Not organic, shall we say :lol:, and not concise. Don't want the show to be about their love life. S5 felt bent around it. S6 was definitely better in that regard. I still have a few residual twitches.
I didn't mind Mac meeting Aubrey. Don't. Want. The show. To be. About. His love life. I don't think S6 came across that way, and it certainly was not the only material he got. I think all the references to his family and hobbies/interests took up more far screen time than Aubrey did
. I think both avenues were tied into cases reasonably well.
How strong the cases themselves were, and how material may be divvied among the group, are other issues.
To be honest, I didn't think any of those characters curcial. Some I wish would have been made more out of.
I agree, and that is part of my point.
Crux is context, screen time, and integration. Whether they're crucial to a plot or not, I still think having those kinds of characters from time to time helps.
Related. If everyone the team encounters is anonymous all the time, it can feel much more reliant on formula, and rather impersonal. But. If done well, being completely on the outside and peeling back the layers can be fun. The flip side is, if the team encounter people they just happen to know too often, it crosses bounds of credulity (and golly, I'd hate for NY to do
that ). But. Why not have them know a few. Why not supplement purely incidental ways the characters are affected by their work to have a bit of both.
Aubrey; would have loved if there was more to her. We've all seen the photo of Claire, so I would love if Mac had sort of seen Claire in Aubrey but would have realized Aubrey wasn't Claire and would have kept things on a friendly basis with her. Then Aubrey would serve the purpose of doing something for Mac's storyline.
a) I think there has already been more of Aubrey's life history established than they bothered to devote to Peyton. I think it was nice to see and understand how and why Mac has felt drawn to Aubrey.
b) I think the show went that route with Peyton in S3 with the name slip-up and showing his struggling to decide to open up more or not. Mac opted for opening up, btw, not retreating to a friendly basis. That also served the purpose of his personal arc.
If that was all, I can live with it as well... Or maybe not because it also happened at the expense of Stella.
Not catching the correlation here. I don't think Mac's relationships with Aubrey or Peyton have much to do with Stella.
Episodes 22 and 21 could both have been written only very slightly differently and could have been written without either Aubrey and Peyton. Mac could have been with Sheldon at the beginning of episode 21 and at the end it could have been Stella - and normally it would have been Stella, had there not been the love triangle.
Ah. Catching on to what you're saying. Coffee. Ya know.
.
Depends in part on whether one begrudges giving characters opportunities to play using more than team interaction alone. I personally didn't mind something a bit different. I have appreciated the show pushing and trying different story formats, eg. in a few eps. I also didn't think other characters really suffered for it. Just my take.
Back somewhat to why not. Why not change up the dynamic and give characters something different to do now and then. And for that matter, why not try a different approach to a case and also have some fun with a bit of an homage?
Why have Flack with a girlfriend who's place was robbed by an uber thief? Why not. Could have been anyone's apartment. Was fun to have that connection. Why have Flack and Danny at a basketball game where someone drops dead? No need for them to be there to establish the case. But it was fun. Why not have Mac and Aubrey's pizza competition interrupted. Stella and Mac still had chinese food for breakfast. Why bother with that? Not necessary. But fun.
Who's to say it would default have been Stella to end an ep like .21? Flack was the key there. Mac and Aubrey were a cyclical fade to black, bookends to start and end the ep. They served a function in structure as well as playing concisely written fun interpersonal interaction. Nothing illogical, melodramatic, or soapish so far as I read it.
Hell. Mebbe Stella had plans of her own. Mebbe she and Sheldon were bowling
. But it's not like Stella gets dibs on Mac, or has somehow been neglected. It was Flack's ep above all. Everyone else was in a sense playing to that.
The focus was quite appropriately on Stella in Marina Garito, for example, and Aubrey didn't take from that at all. And of course, in that ep, some people felt Stella's depiction was over the top. So go figure. Can't please everyone alla da time.
Peyton wouldn't have needed to be in the guys apartment at all, it could have been a friend of whoever from the team. There was no need for Peyton Without saying they're connected, just figuratively speaking, they got their love triangle but MK is leaving...
I gotta add this in, here:
It's all about how you connect things. How you tie the characters in and make them crucial because you can do it; you can give them a purpose and if there isn't you just leave out the personal connection to a character.
Peyton's past with Mac made it a fun tie in and enabled added layers in playing the plot that using a team member would not. It enabled more than teh Usual. It was integrated well.
Peyton was no longer part of the ME's office. Having a non-cop, no-longer-NY-credentialed character poking about the apartment of someone she didn't want to suspect held more risk than a typical duo processing a scene. She was taking a stance contrary to Mac's Point Of View at every step of the way. That in itself was a different dynamic that we have seen far more rarely. (And no, that's not Stella's purview alone). Add into that a personal history, and it charges the situation a bit more.
Peyton's return wasn't gratuitously done. A case was at the forefront, it did bring back a formerly recurring character, and it did address past material as well.
Orignally Posted By Maya316
CSI as a franchise is about crime-solving and scientific technobabble.... Imo -- going from what drew me to the original CSI almost ten years ago -- how the characters deal day-to-day with that line of work, and how they connect with each other on that level and the bonds that arise from that, are way more important than how they connect on a more personal level. Especially being a procedural show, it's the characters' everyday hook that counts more than what's going on in their personal lives or what storylines they might have.
I agree a helluva lot with a lotta this. So much of what I said in my Dear Writers from a ways back still stands. One of the reasons it was fun to see NY from its inception was to learn the characters through how they did their job, and how that affected them. How they managed within that depended not just on their own character but their interaction with those they work with. That interaction really became a sort of signature for NY in addition to the city and the tone. The personal revelations that we got along the way were gravy.
But. As a series goes along, people get to know the rhythms of a formula and format, especially one that is a third spin off within a franchise. It's not unusual or out of place to look to characters a bit more as both subjects and players. So long as the over riding premise of the show remains.
We did get a bit more of seeing how cases were affecting some characters this season. It didn't always feel as cohesive as it has in the past. Characters and context feed off each other. But its been awhile since the puzzles alone have been strong enough to carry NY, if they ever were.
However, I've always wondered why, despite being the one most likely to go personal, NY is often seen as the most "impersonal" of the CSIs, even by people who watch all three fairly regularly.
That's curious. Haven't encountered that sentiment. I don't think NY is the most impersonal of the three, nor have I heard it referred to that way.
With S6, I think the problem became a little clearer for me -- the trap NY may have fallen into is that if people don't care enough about the characters themselves to feel they can relate to them, they're not going to give a crap about what's going on in their personal lives. With the general CSI format, the way to make people care may be by highlighting what they're like on the job, and with the characters on the job rather than off it. Doing otherwise just seems out of place.
For me, I think the past few seasons have fallen into a few potholes. I think the cases and the depiction of how they have been investigated over the past few seasons have but for a few been average to mediocre. I think this makes character related material stand out more, and it's platform mandate less prominent. It does shift the balance in quality if one does not have relative parity with the other. Characters additionally have become associated with certain functions and feel increasingly predictable in how the are used, in the tone with which they speak, and also feel less challenged by their circumstances and investigations. The motions, as you say. That equates with a certain disinterest. In both elements of what supposedly feed the show. I think mallets have been wielded with oblivious disregard. I as a viewer am not as engaged or challenged by what is presented.
I think the cases need to be stronger and more tightly depicted. I think the city as an anchor needs to feel more prominent. I think that appearances by recurring characters can aid with a sense of context as well. I think the main characters are still our way into the realm of the show. I think who they are and what made them that way and how that informs their current demeanor or how that in turn is modified by who and what they encounter is more than fair game.
Solving a weekly puzzle means that the victim isn't focused on as much as perhaps in SVU, for example, the perpetrator isn't focused on as in CM, the system isn't focused on as it was in L&O. It doesn't play to a will they/won't they dynamic between leads as in Castle or Bones. It doesn't look to tweak procedurals on teh nose as the Mentalist. It's not a buddy cop show as NCIS:LA essentially is. It's not a truth or dare show like Lie To Me. It's also not the only CSI show on. So what sets it apart?
What makes it unique, if anything, are the core group of characters and its home city combined with it's franchise hook, that devil is in the details and he's gonna get you in the end. It is a tricky balance.
Most of those are enjoyable and brilliant on different levels, and can be a fun treat; but only in the sense that they perform their function, an extension of a character I actually want to see more of. When they do otherwise, that, imo, is when they start detracting from episodes. They`re supposed to be the icing, not the whole cake. They're not what I tune in to see and imo, I shouldn't be left feeling like those moments were the highlight of the episode. Which I often was in S6.
So I definitely agree that relatable characters, and certainly cases are the main focus.
I agree. When done well, I do enjoy elements that augment a scenario or aspect of a character. Just adds a wee something.
Even on CSI Original Flavor, the characters have had eps about personal issues and events. It's how its integrated, and perhaps how often. I still do think Vegas is the strongest of the three. It is the first one I started watching, but is also one I fell away from, whereas I have stubbornly kept checking in on NY. And I don't know why... :shifty:
. Perhaps it is to see how well my adopted show/experiment does each week :lol:. I think it's more that I want to see what these
particular characters will encounter together each week, and what they do about it. Characters, cases, context.
Just to repeat something I said far more concisely elsewhere, in order to curtail rambling further :lol:.
For me, a mix of a character's history and interaction among the core group, on both personal and case related points helps all of them be more interesting and three-dimensional, and is how most of us got to know them in the first place; adding opportunities thru secondary characters is also fun; having a brand new leading character is going to open up a whole new array of possibilities to develop new material and revisit more established material thru a new lens.
Meh. another long one :lol:. needing coffee and hoping this hasn't suffered unduly for the lack of it.
