Season 8: "Dead Doll" Discussion *SPOILERS*

Re: "Dead Doll" Discussion **SPOILERS**

sarahvma said:
But, frankly, since you admitted that you didn't watch, you can't know that. Shakespeare only had one original play - The Tempest. Is anyone going to say that because he mimicked old stories that he was suddenly a hack? It's not whether the story is original or not - it's whether it's told well.

And the consensus among many people who did actually watch the episode was that it was good.

And also, again - where was the massive GSR? Where was the great amount of romance? This episode was about Sara vs. the Desert. Except for Grissom riding in the chopper and holding her hand, and him flashing back to an earlier episode, it was almost completely GSR-free.

I couldn't stomach it, it was too silly and too predictable - I knew Sara would survive, I knew the rip-off effect from the promo's alone.

Shakesspeare had archetypes in his stories - and reused them according to the time he (or they, jury
is still out on that) lived in. He didn't reuse every detail. Are you seriously comparing Shankar to Shakespeare? :rolleyes:

So frankly, the similarities were too many for my taste. I know the many (you wouldn't cite your source now, would you?) you refer to probably like predictability, but I don't. And this ep, the parts I was able to stomach, had nothing I hadn't seen done better before.
 
Re: "Dead Doll" Discussion **SPOILERS**

Sara4Nick said:
Sphinx said:
Sara4Nick said:
Also with what little water did take in whatever that was it was very powerful.

The scene where Natalie where she talked about Ernie just underscored the idea that Ernie and Natalie commited incest. Ernie was suppose to be her foster father. I think Grissom is more Sara's mentor than father figure.

What is your question about the water? Are you asking where the water came from? Are you questioning if that was enough water to move the car?


I am talking about the water Natalie was pouring into Sara in the car, that then put her to sleep.

Now I understand what your are talking about. It must have had some sedative in it.

I know people think Sara should of stayed with the car. I agree she should have waited until dark. There are several reasons for her to take matters into her own hands.
1) She may have been afraid they wouldn't know where to look.
2) She didn't have water with her and she knew the flash flood water would go as quickly as it came.
3)She may have been trying to get away from the flood waters as quickly as possible.
4) She may have been afraid Natalie would come back as stated before.
5) She may have driven in the area before and forgotten how much longer it takes to walk the same distance.
6)She may have been afraid she would go into shock and was trying to get to a hospital.

Don't forget they mentioned that the areas Natalie had been looking at had no roads, so she had no guarantee anyone would find her in time.
 
Re: "Dead Doll" Discussion **SPOILERS**

I can't imagine anyone watching this mind-blowing episode and nit-picking and disecting and finding fault with it. This ep. was brilliant ;) and on the 'why didn't she hide under a rock' ha-ha-ha- :D,[I live here, trust me] there are no friggin' rocks, and the few that are here, have scorpions and rattlesnakes under them, and she's smart enough to realize that! & the car, how did it get turned upside down, don't you all remember when Brass was talking to the tow-truck guy, he did it! for freak-show Natalie, and she probably payed him.. and then she stuck Sara underneath it....I loved and was totally thrilled with the whole thing, and the acting was superb by all of them! I bow down to the writers and Jorja Fox
hug.gif
 
Re: "Dead Doll" Discussion **SPOILERS**

I watched it again today, and it improved my negative opinion somewhat. Once you realize that the episode is focused on Sara's experience, your expectations are more in line. I think the episode we may have been wanting will really be next week. I enjoyed the camera work and the scenery more the second time around. Also I think that the sequence with Sara in the back seat ("Happy Happy Joy Joy" speech) was the most impressive acting I've seen from Jorja in the series.

I missed it the first time around, but as others have mentioned, the scene with Grissom and Cath using tiny binoculars to zoom in on rock piles right under their nose is hilarious. WP's acting in the last scene was pretty damn good, though.
 
Re: "Dead Doll" Discussion **SPOILERS**

If you read the spoilers and everything else, how do you expect to have suspense. Everyone is complaining about it not being suspenseful enough, well if you kow going into it Sara is gonna live 100% I can understand not being on the edge of your seat.
 
Re: "Dead Doll" Discussion **SPOILERS**

Grizzom said:
I watched it again today, and it improved my negative opinion somewhat. Once you realize that the episode is focused on Sara's experience, your expectations are more in line. I think the episode we may have been wanting will really be next week. I enjoyed the camera work and the scenery more the second time around. Also I think that the sequence with Sara in the back seat ("Happy Happy Joy Joy" speech) was the most impressive acting I've seen from Jorja in the series.

I missed it the first time around, but as others have mentioned, the scene with Grissom and Cath using tiny binoculars to zoom in on rock piles right under their nose is hilarious. WP's acting in the last scene was pretty damn good, though.

Overall I thought the acting wasn't that great, but it wasn't the actor's fault, the script was just TERRIBLE. Warrick, Catherine, Greg and Hodges didn't really seem to care about finding her that much. Even Nick wasn't as emotional as I expected. Grissom just sucks now, so I don't really pay attention to him anymore. You could drive a spaceship through the holes in the logic, and that was one thing CSI used to be very good at, the episodes always followed a fairly logical route.

Sara's 'journey' was laughable. In fact, i was laughing through the entire thing. It was pretty much the same thing Nick went through in GD, but outside instead of being in a box. And super cheesy and chiche. And the slow motion wasn't helping, i think they got lazy.

And the car wouldn't lift up because of buoyancy, because there wasn't enough water compared to the weight of the car, and the car wasn't emerged enough for the buoyant forces to be relevent. Maybe the current would move it sideways, but it was just retardly cheesy and chiche, the entire sequence of her getting out of the car.
 
Re: "Dead Doll" Discussion **SPOILERS**

I think i might have to watch it again.

Hmm why is people comparing this to GRAVE DANGER. That was a very very good two part episode. Made Nick VERY strong character...

I dont know, it was good ok... Waiting for next weeks episode...

I didn't cry, or laught but i did on a few times say ' Oh my god!' Also, 'Sara!'

So yeah a good episode. Apart from the 'Gilbert' which I sniggered at.
 
Re: "Dead Doll" Discussion **SPOILERS**

Ah, Dead Doll. Plenty of things that were good, and plenty that weren't so good…

Firstly, the new opening credits look almost the same, but with the addition of the lovely Wallace Langham, and why not? He’s a great regular lab guy. But I did feel that to do justice to his new position they gave him a job to do, which lab guys don’t normally do, and that was process a female suspect… It just seemed odd to me, although he did well at looking pretty freaked out by Natalie.

So obviously, the episode was focused on Sara, with the (unusual) use of old flashbacks. I actually liked them, and to me it did make it feel more as though Sara could potentially be in a life threatening situation. I loved when Sara called Grissom ‘Gilbert’, how great is that! It’s the small details that tend to please me the most, as the larger things and plot lines are often too ridiculous for me to really appreciate them, if you know what I mean.

I could complain about the silly details in this episode probably all night, but I’ll try and keep it brief, because I genuinely thought this episode was OK (not great, awesome etc. but OK nonetheless). Firstly, one of my main complaints from the end of last season was that Natalie just wasn’t a convincing enough serial killer for my liking. And once again, I just don’t buy it. Fair enough, I wondered how she got Sara into the car in the first place, and they answered it simply and convincingly. But after that I just don’t really see how Sara didn’t overpower her, or at least successfully crash the car. Where were they? It looked like there were lights and therefore potential witnesses?

After this, and pretty obviously, why hadn’t they looked into the crashed red car before? It was obvious to find it and find how it got into the desert, because for however good they think Natalie is, she isn’t a complete genius able to magically get a car into the desert on her own. My only other Natalie issue, and I may be missing something, but at the end of last season Grissom spoke to her and she was fairly coherent (well, much more so than now) so why has she suddenly had a complete breakdown? Or is it just convenient for the plot?

OK, so flash flood etc, Sara gets out of the car. It’s all good. I can understand her wanting to get to higher ground, and she seems fairly coherent herself at this point. She understands when it gets to daylight the need to cover her head, for example, and she leaves a trail, so why has she failed to follow the basic rules for surviving in a desert? Because, like it or not there was adequate coverage for her to shelter near to the car and it would have made so much more sense (although, granted it would have been a dull episode).

So, not sheltering did give her the opportunity to sport some rather inventive headgear. Fabulous stuff! And I did wonder why she was carrying that stupid mirror with her the whole time, but in fact she was making a good choice. So I guess, she made a survival decision, and chose walking. The problem is, once you choose you have to keep going, and I like how that was portrayed and I think Jorja Fox did a sterling job!

Others who did great jobs were Nick (although I admit I’m slightly biased towards the beautiful Texan man), he just does emotion extremely well, it was believable and a little bit heartbreaking. And Brass, playing a hard ass with the car lot guy, it was a short but great scene, he does a great tough cop impression…

Both Grissom and Nick were great when finding the car and the vest, and at that point I really felt for Grissom and that he might be feeling some pain at the loss of his loved one. Unfortunately, other than that I was less than convinced by his emotional performance.

I was assured that I would need Kleenex for this one, and I really didn’t. I got close at the end, but that mood was ruined for me because I was busy trying to figure out what emotion Grissom was portraying. He almost looked to be in physical pain, and then almost smiling, perhaps grimacing, but none of it quite seemed right…And then the episode ended, and now we must hope for some sort of follow up next week, because there was more that could be said I think.

Good points: Nick finding Sara, rather than the expected cliché of Grissom being the saviour. Jorja’s performance.

Bad points: It was the story of Sara, which whilst good, wasn’t exactly a CSI episode and didn’t seem to utilise any usual CSI features to solve the case… They basically used normal detective work, and walking round a desert hoping to bump into her. Luckily they did.

OK, that was longer than I meant to write...
 
Re: "Dead Doll" Discussion **SPOILERS**

I agree with a lot of the things you (and others) said, but I wanted to comment on a couple things. Since the finale, I have been desirous of seeing Sara save herself. I have never enjoyed the weak female awaiting rescue stories. Sara is the perfect character to break out of that mold. The car-fu and MacGyver bits were excellent. The main thing that bugged me was that Sara hauled that damned mirror around with her all day, but it was a chance reflection catching Nick's eye that saved her. I was certain she woulld use it to hail a helicopter, but those disappeared inexplicably early in the episode.

wlk68 said:
Gee, Grissom, of course the little miniature is going to stop working if you pour water on it.

Grissom wasn't worried about whether or not the battery died. He was more interested in seeing where the water would come to rest. I know the director/writers were intent on showing the little doll drown, but that's because they think we (the viewers) are stupid, and because they wanted to hike up the drama.

The tazer thing didn't bother me. It is POSSIBLE to do this, so I will let it slide. There have been more laughable improbabilities in the life of this series.

I don't understand the wandering, either. I saw a lot of explanations for it in this thread, but none of them are easy to swallow. After she reached the summit and saw how stranded she was, it would have made more sense for her to return to the car or to rest in whatever shade she could find.

I thought the same thing about her mouth (I was actually laughing about it, because it is a huge no-no), but you have to give Jorja some leeway. She was acting, and it was necessary for her to use all of her face to express her pain, exhaustion, confusion, etc.

The map and the dead body were both ridiculous. Neither lead to anything or added anything to the story.

That said, I enjoyed it for what it was. A Sara-centric story that allowed the team to (once again) pull together in an emergency.
 
Re: "Dead Doll" Discussion **SPOILERS**

I'm sorry, xfcanadian, but I have to disagree with you about Nick not being emotional, he is. He was emotional, because he care more about Sara then the other does. I have to agree with you about Catherine, Greg, and Warrick, they don't look concern about Sara. Grissom, it hard to said about him, if he is emotional or not. I watch it again, only two people show the flashback are Grissom and Nick, not Catherine, Greg, Warrick and Brass, I really thought they would show them the flasback for Sara to them.

I give it thumb up to these episode.

I will give Sara and Nick 10+- they were the best one.
 
Re: "Dead Doll" Discussion **SPOILERS**

Actually I did mean that Nick was emotional, but I thought he would be more in this eppy. His scenes were the best parts of the eppy. It was more of a problem with bad writing than anything.

Also, how did her footprints survive a flash flood?? And when the helicopters were looking for the car, wouldn't they have see Sara, since she couldn't have walked that far, considering she was stumbling around. These aren't just small nit picking details, but major plot devices that are bad.

About Grissoms emotions...yeah, he kind of looked constipated to me. Usually WP's acting is pretty good, but wow, it wasn't in this one. I have found the acting with the GSR stuff has been forced, I don't see any natural chemistry between the two actors.
 
Re: "Dead Doll" Discussion **SPOILERS**

I think the reason I (and maybe some others) was a bit disappointed is that for months we've been discussing what *might* happen, and in fact maybe what we *wanted* to happen, and then it was kind of a let down.

Personally, it just went too quickly for me. I even checked when there were about 3 minutes left to make sure it wasn't going to be on for two hours because I thought there's NO WAY this can wrap up in just a couple more minutes. But it did. Sort of. I guess. Bleah.

I don't want to nit pick every little thing, because I could probably do that with every episode. But there just happened to be a dead body out there where they were looking? So Natalie put Sara in an area frequented by hikers, obviously. Not so smart.

But she's so smart as to make these models and get away with all these crazy murders, yet she leaves the phone number (and what it's for!) to the tow truck place?

Did anyone catch all the things she said when Hodges was in the room? The only thing I got was "I promised", which I took to mean she promised Ernie that she wouldn't kill again, which is why she left Sara alive.
 
Re: "Dead Doll" Discussion **SPOILERS**

Hey guys don't worry for once (at least in this post) I am not going to yell at you. :p *Steps up on the box* But I would appreciate that you read this whole post.

What I do want to say is this, we all understand that in any episode discussion there is going to be critiquing the episode, the scenes, the actors, the characters, the sites and sounds, you are getting my point.

But here is the thing some people are a bit confused with the critiquing vs just a plain opinion. Lets remember that this is the internet and sometimes things can be misconstrued. But if you out right call names to purposely bash all its going to do is draw attacks, which just isn't cool. You know Actor/actress bashing is wrong because they are real. But in the long run save the energy and if you feel like calling any character inapporperiate names just do us a favor and don't.

If you say so and so acted Bitchy there is the difference because that is an action to a point and a pretty common thing that is said. But for example calling someone a sl*t or @sshole thats just rude, even if its a fictional character and as I said before its just drawing fire and thats just never good.

In conclusion check the "Preview Reply" read what you wrote make sure somewhere in there any anger or whatever didn't popout when it wasn't meant to, or if you could have said it a bit differently, just remember this when you are talking about a character you don't care for, preview what you wrote and then put in the name of the character you LIKE and then see how you would react to what you wrote. If your fine, okay, if not then hey you saved yourself the trouble of an argument. ;)

Thank you. *Steps down from the box*
 
Re: "Dead Doll" Discussion **SPOILERS**

Ok dont be mad or curse me out.....

I stopped watching CSI last year, if I did watch it (dont be yelling at me) it was between Grey Anatomy. I wanted to watch this year because I am a fan of Sara's I love the show but I liked her character so i'm glad shes alive....

leaving the show in October (or begining of Nov)
so although I'm happy there season premiere did great I don't know if I'm going to stick with it long enough to get back into it again.
 
Re: "Dead Doll" Discussion **SPOILERS**

elwood while I doubt anyone will yell at you, and I am not now so don't worry about it, please remember in the future spoilerish things like I put the tag in your post are discouraged and belong in the lab. ;) Again no harm done we live and learn.
 
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