Telgenhoff: Overall I'd Give 'Em A B+

[CSI Files]

<font color=yellow>Dr. Gary Telgenhoff</font> knows it's just television.

"Let's face it. It's Hollywood, and nothing's going to get in the way of a good story," Telgenhoff said at Millersville University in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Telgenhoff is a real-life medical examiner in Las Vegas. He also acts as a consultant for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

"They'll write a scenario or something, and they'll want to know if this could happen or how could it happen better," Telgenhoff said, explaining his role in creating CSI. In some cases, the scenarios are completely unbelievable, such as the time the writers included a veterinarian doing an autopsy on a human. Telgenhoff put the brakes on that idea before it made it to the screen. "I said please don't do that it's against the law. Nobody will believe it don't do it," he said.

Sometimes, however, the writers take creative licence even when the result isn't entirely realistic. The machine that provides DNA results almost instantaneously is completely fake, for example. But the biggest flaw in the show is the premise itself: forensic scientists solving crimes. "The CSI is the lowest person on the totem pole," Telgenhoff explained. "They're the ones that collect the evidence." However, despite the fact that CSI is not always realistic, Telgenhoff said that it is still pretty close. "Overall I'd give 'em a B+," he said, "maybe a minus."

The original article was posted at WHP CBS 21 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.<center></center>

 

[greggoooo_fan]

a B+?? That's quite low for CSI! I understand what he means, I do. But I think he shouldn't just look at how realistic CSI is. He should also look at the way the CSI producers MAKE fake things become real. For example, he and many other people say that being a CSI in real life, is all about collecting evidence. Lab rats do the rest. But Anthony E. Zuiker, Carol Mendelson and all the others create a world in which being a CSI is more than that. Although it is not realistic, they make it LOOK like it is real. It's very hard to explain what I mean, but I hope you guys get it. He's being too hard on CSI. The realism of a show is very important in the tv world. Grey's Anatomy is famous for it's drama mixed with surgeries, that look very real. CSI is famous for it's outstanding characters and very believable plots. CSI Las Vegas also has another point of realism in it: every crime is committed in Sin City. And everyone knows Vegas is the place to be when it comes to fake-Elvis, strange alien clubs, that kind of things. So when CSI has a murder that includes a woman obsessed by aliens, that could actually happen in Vegas. What you often see, it that New York and Miami cases are more realistic, more down to earth. This is ofcourse because New York and Miami are cities where aliens are not that.... popular. So Telgenhoff is not completely right when it comes to his point about 'CSI scenarios being unbelievable'. Or atleast, that is my opinion!

 

[Finch]

^ Well personally, I don't think the Miami cases are very down-to-earth anymore. They're probably the most unrealistic franchise of the three and would earn themselves a nice fat D- when it comes to realism. Probably lower.

But I get what you mean greggoooo_fan.

I would think that CSI would get a lower rating than B+/- just because he's right--CSIs are the lowest on the investigative totem pole, so that in itself already lands the show into television glam and not realism.

However I think the show does deserve a lot of credit when it comes to creating an episode. They do have many consultants and they strive to get it as 'real' as possible whilst aiming to entertain their audience, at least in the earlier seasons. If it were exactly like real life, no one would watch. Ie: Watching them wait around by a machine for three weeks for their DNA results.

I can really understand the frustration when those who work for law enforcement or criminalists see CSI, but the show isn't about 100% realism, it's about entertainment. That said, sometimes I wish the producers would back up and take a little more time to get things even more acurate as as the seasons progress. Seems like they're going for less of the science and more of the glam. And now the science seems more like science fiction.