Ok, here are the ones I could think of (I've been making a list, hehe). Some are repeats, but I figure this stuff bears repeating. Maybe if we say it more, the psychic waves will reach LA. :lol:
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Mac: More interaction with
Reed. I'd like to get more information about
Claire as well--any chance to humanize him is always good.
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Stella: No bad relationship choices--if we're going to see her dating, it would be great if they weren't psychos. I'd also like some indication of whether the HIV scare is still affecting her. Also, since I'm always wishing we'd see the other characters interact with their families, maybe we could see how
not having a family affects her.
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Danny:
LOUIE; also, some hints about how he's dealing long-term with
Ruben's death. Just because
Rikki left doesn't mean that whole storyline disappeared.
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Hawkes: More. Just more. More about his past, his present, whatever, just
more.
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Lindsay: If they must continue to hammer home that she's from Montana, can they at least do it in a more organic (and less annoying) way than being all 'PEOPLE IN MONTANA WALK IN THE RAIN LOL'? Maybe have something in a case ping her memory. "You know, this reminds me of one of the first cases I worked back in Bozeman. The guy blah-dee-blah-dee-blah." You get the idea. If people don't know Bozeman is in Montana and are too lazy to look it up, that's their problem. Otherwise, don't assume the audience is too stupid to make less blatant connections.
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Flack:
Papa Flack, ideally, but I'm not holding my breath any more. Does he still interact with
Gavin Moran? Again, not holding my breath. I'd like to see him really crack a case, show that yeah, science is a good crime fighting tool, but so is good old fashioned police work.
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Sid: I love Sid, and I've love to see his daughter pop up one of these days. In the meantime, more creepy place moments would be fantastic.
He and Hawkes are always fantastic together, so more of that please.
Since it's also nice to see him and Mac in the same scenes, I'll put in an order for more of those while I'm at it.
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Adam: *pets him* More about his abusive childhood, and maybe let him help with a case all the way through to the end instead of disappearing as soon as the team gets whatever they need from him.
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Angell: More Angell would be good. It would be a shame to just drop her now. I'm happy with little tidbits (like the line about her father and brothers in "Commuted Sentences").
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All: More friendships. We've seen how well it works, so I'd like to see it featured more. Also, don't sleep with your co-workers, especially if you're Danny or Lindsay. It just turns into more trouble than it's worth.
Those are my big ones for the characters. As for cases:
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Show the other boroughs. Seriously, New York is not just Manhattan.
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Create a better balance of cases. Mix the techy gadgets in with good old-fashioned druggie-killed-his-dealer type of cases. Balance out the glamour with the grit.
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More 'only in New York' types of cases. The rat eating the bullet in S1 is something you probably wouldn't see in Vegas or Miami. There are three CSI shows all trying to keep things fresh--using cases that are kind of unique to NYC seems like a good idea to me. The subway is such a big part of the city, so why not use it more? Central park could feature more, that kind of thing. Also, scrolling through the episode guide reminds me of little tidbits from the episodes that are quintessentially New York--but I can't remember as many from season four as I could from the earlier seasons.
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More diversity--NYC is a melting pot,
show it. If you're watching an episode and actually think 'OMG I SAW AN ASIAN PERSON', there's probably something that could be tweaked just a bit, don't you think? The city isn't full of rich, white, beautiful people.
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More experts/consultants/etc in individual episodes rather than one of the main people always pulling the answers out of their asses. It wouldn't be that hard. Beyond keeping our main players from unrealistically looking like they know EVERYTHING, it's a chance to create more guest spots. Continuing with the idea of more diversity from my previous point, if you have more guest stars that aren't necessarily victims or murderers, you could have more diversity without stereotyping groups within the show. Disabled people aren't always vengeful or wanting to kill themselves, gay people aren't always victims because of their sexuality, fat people don't always die/kill because they're overweight, etc. What happened to Dr Giles? How about an expert in ______ that just happens to be gay (and could feature 2 or 3 times during a season)? How is it that we rarely see lawyers on this show? That's a good opportunity to bring in good actors of any type. I really think adding a few small guest/recurring roles here and there would do a great deal to increase diversity on this show.
Long post is long.