CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

This article is about TV series. For the computer game, see CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (computer game).

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
The CSI logo </small>
Genre	Crime Drama
Running time	40-42 Minutes
Creator(s)	Anthony E. Zuiker
Starring	William Petersen Marg Helgenberger Gary Dourdan George Eads Jorja Fox Eric Szmanda Robert David Hall Louise Lombard Paul Guilfoyle
Country of origin	United States
Original channel	CBS
Original run	October 6, 2000–present
No. of episodes	150
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation's ratings
USA	TV-14 / TV-MA / TV-PG (Syndicated episodes)
GBR	15 (season 1, 3-5 DVD) / 18 (season 2 DVD)
CAN	14+ / 18+ (some episodes)
AUS	MA (DVD rating) / M (some episodes)

CSI franchise

Las Vegas Unit New York Unit Miami Unit Franchise cast Characters of the original series Characters of the New York Unit Characters of the Miami Unit

Creators

Anthony E. Zuiker (All three) Carol Mendelsohn (NY and Miami) Ann Donahue (NY and Miami)

Computer games

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Dark Motives CSI: Miami CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (commonly referred to as CSI) is a popular, Emmy Award-winning CBS television series that trails the investigations of a team of Las Vegas forensic scientists as they unveil the circumstances behind mysterious and unusual deaths and crimes committed. The show has spurred two spinoffs, one set in Miami (CSI: Miami) and another in New York City (CSI: NY). The show is produced in partnership with the Canadian media company Alliance Atlantis.

Series Premise

The show follows the cases of the Crime Scene Investigation division of the Las Vegas Police Department, usually referred to by officers as the “Las Vegas Crime Lab.” Anthony E. Zuiker chose to set the series in Las Vegas because - as mentioned in the pilot episode - that city's crime lab is the second most active in the United States, after the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia.^[1] The division solves crimes almost entirely through the means of forensics evidence, which may or may not come to the conclusion of a murder or accidental death. Keeping in theme with the setting, investigations often lead to taboo subjects, such as sexual deviations. The bizarre conclusions of these cases forces one to question morals and beliefs and possibly human nature in general.

Style

Stylistically, the show has drawn favorable comparisons to Quincy and The X-Files. The show's gadgets and occasional usage of yet-to-be-invented technology have moved the show nominally into the genre of science fiction and garnered it a 2004 Saturn Award nomination for best science fiction, fantasy, or horror television series.

The series is known for its unusual camera angles, percussive editing techniques, hi-tech gadgets, detailed technical discussion, and graphic portrayal of bullet trajectories, blood spray patterns, organ damage, methods of evidence recovery (e.g. fingerprints from the inside of latex gloves), and crime reconstructions. Many episodes feature lengthy scenes in which experiments, tests, or other technical work is portrayed in detail, usually with no sound except accompanying music — a technique reminiscent of Mission: Impossible. Often the lighting, composition, and mise-en-scene elements are heavily influenced by avant-garde film.

Although violence plays an important role in the series, in terms of the investigator's actual conduct the series is actually less violent than its immediate spin-off, CSI: Miami in that the Las Vegas investigators rarely use deadly force.

Although most episodes cover the solving of two cases (which are sometimes related to each other), a few episodes focus on a single case.

Cast

Main Cast

The Cast

Supporting Cast

Characters

Main article: List of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation characters

Main characters

• Las Vegas CSI Head Investigator Dr. Gilbert 'Gil' Grissom (William Petersen): The night shift team supervisor for the Las Vegas CSI unit, and a forensic entomologist with a degree in biology from UCLA. Grissom was born August 17 1956 (Season 2 Ep. 13 - "Identity Crisis"). He is very methodical and scientific, as well as having a congenital medical condition (from his mother) which threatened to take away his hearing, until he underwent surgery.

• Las Vegas CSI Level 3 Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger): A blood spatter analyst. She was second-in-command of the nightshift for the first four seasons, assuming command when Grissom was out of town or otherwise on leave. She recently moved teams to become supervisor of the new swing shift team. Following the reunion of the night shift team in Season 6, she returns to her previous position.

• Las Vegas CSI Level 3 Warrick Brown (Gary Dourdan): A Las Vegas native and a chemistry major from UNLV, is an audio/visual analyst. Warrick also is a recovering gambling addict which is hindered by the fact he works in Las Vegas.

• Las Vegas CSI Level 3 Nick Stokes (George Eads): An easygoing and friendly former college baseball player and fraternity member with a degree in criminal justice from Texas A&M University, is a hair and fiber analyst from Dallas, Texas. Nick tends to "empathize instead of sympathize" with the victims, which has drawn several rebukes from others.

• Las Vegas CSI Level 3 Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox): A materials and element analyst. A physics major at Harvard University, Sidle previously worked for the San Francisco coroner and crime lab. She is completely devoted to her job and will go to almost any lengths to make sure justice is served, for both the victims and the criminals.

• LVMPD Homicide Detective Captain James 'Jim' Brass (Paul Guilfoyle): Brass was the head of the CSI unit in Las Vegas until he was moved back to the police homicide division in the second episode. He was originally from New Jersey. He continues to work with CSI despite problems in Season Two with his daughter. He's now Captain in the homicide division and works closely with the CSI team.

• Las Vegas CSI Level 1 Gregory 'Greg' Sanders (Eric Szmanda): The newest field worker on the CSI team since the season 5 episode "Who Shot Sherlock". He idolizes Grissom, once had a crush on Sara Sidle, and is known for his "wacky" behavior. He is also known for being naive about forensics while working in the field despite an encyclopaedic knowledge of DNA and Trace Analysis.

• Las Vegas Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Albert 'Al' Robbins (Robert David Hall): The head county coroner. Married with three children, he's often the only one who understands Grissom. He has two prosthetic legs, and it has been implied that he lost them in an accident while trying to dig up a floor at a crime scene.

• Las Vegas CSI Level 3 Detective Sofia Curtis (Louise Lombard): A CSI who became part of Gil's team after the mid-season 5 split, courtesy of Ecklie. She soon considered resignation, upset at the fact that she had been demoted from acting swing-shift supervisor. A recurring character in season five, but in season six she moved from being a CSI to a Detective. She became a main character in season seven.

Upcoming

• Michael Keppler (Liev Schreiber)

Episode list

Main article: List of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episodes

U.S. television ratings

Seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation on CBS.

Note: Each U.S. network television season starts in late September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion of May sweeps.

Critical reception

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, along with CBS's hit franchise Survivor, was instrumental in CBS instantly becoming a major competitor on Thursday nights, as well as becoming the most-watched network on U.S. television. It was announced on December 19, 2000 that CBS was going to move CSI (from Fridays) and Survivor (from Wednesdays) to Thursday nights starting in February 2001 to challenge NBC's long-standing and popular Must See TV lineup, which included the hit shows, Friends and Will & Grace. As a result, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation was the most-watched program on television for the 2002-2003 TV season^[8] and has been in the top 3 of the most-watched TV programs every season since the 2001-2002 TV season. CBS has now become the most-watched network on Thursday nights due to the departure of NBC's Friends in 2004, ER's gradual decline in viewer numbers for NBC, and the emergence of another popular CBS crime drama, Without a Trace, from the fall of 2002 until it was moved to Sunday nights in the fall of 2006.

The 2004-2005 season finale, directed by Quentin Tarantino and entitled Grave Danger, was watched by over 40 million viewers on May 19, 2005.

The show averages 30 million viewers every week and as of February 2006, CBS reported that over 90 million viewers have tuned into the series this past year alone.

Criticism

• CSI has often been criticized for showing what is believed to be gratuitous amounts of graphic violence, gruesome images and sexual content, more than what is normally acceptable on network television and the limits of the television rating for certain episodes.^[9] The show also seems to focus on sexual fetishism and other forms of sexual pleasure. However, spokespeople for the show state that the content is not meant to be gratuitous at all and that it is necessary and relevant to the plot of episodes.

• Another harsh criticism of the show is the lack of proper procedure and realism.^[10] For instance, the Crime Scene Investigators not only investigate the crime scenes (as their job entails) but they also solve the crimes. This seems to fall under the scope of detectives and not CSI personnel.

• Police and District Attorneys have become highly critical of the show as it gives members of the public an unrealistic view of how police solve crimes. District Attorneys say that the show makes cases with little physical evidence harder to win, because juries expect to see "CSI" type evidence.^[11] (For more information, please see the article CSI Effect.)

• CSI has been criticised by parts of the LGBT community for its use of negative stereotypes.^[12]

Soundtrack

CSI's theme song is "Who Are You", written by Pete Townshend of The Who^[13] as the title track of their 1978 album. The show's spinoffs also use Who songs as their theme songs: "Won't Get Fooled Again" for CSI: Miami and "Baba O'Riley" for CSI: NY, both recorded by The Who in 1971 for their album Who's Next.

The show is known to also use Radiohead's music in many episodes; a total of four Radiohead songs appeared in the span of three episodes at the end of the show's third season.^[14]

Another frequently used musical artist is Marilyn Manson, who is also friends with CSI actor Eric Szmanda. Szmanda appeared in the video for Manson's song "sAINT".

Quite frequently when entering a sex shop or BDSM parlor music by the Industrial Metal band Rammstein can be heard.

The season 7 premiere, "Built to Kill, Part 1" featured artist John Mayer performing songs from his album Continuum.

Awards

• 2002 Emmy Award - Outstanding Makeup for a Series (Non Prosthetic)
• 2003 Emmy Award - Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series
• 2003 Telegatto - Best TV Series (Italy)
• 2005 People's Choice Awards - Choice TV Drama
• 2005 People's Choice Awards - Choice TV Actress - Marg Helgenberger
• 2006 People's Choice Awards - Choice TV Drama

DVD releases

Region 1 DVD releases

CSI Season 6

The US box sets are distributed by Paramount Home Entertainment, while the Canadian box sets are distributed by Alliance Atlantis.

Region 2/4 DVD releases

CSI Season 5 Part 1

Region 2 and 4 DVD releases have followed a pattern whereby each season is progressively released in two parts (each of 11 or 12 episodes, with special features split up) before finally being sold as a single box set. After being almost 12 months behind the region 2 releases for a while now, the region 4 releases are speeding up, with distributors foregoing the usual release pattern of "Part 1, Part 2, Complete Series" for season 5 and simply releasing it as a complete box set.

Online sales

Country	Store	Available Season
United States	iTunes Store	7 After episode airs on TV. You can purchase the "season pass" which allows you to download each episode after it airs on television.
United States	Amazon Unbox	6
United Kingdom	Five Download	6

International broadcasters

It has been suggested that this section be split into a new article. (Discuss)

CSI is broadcast on the following stations around the world (sorted in alphabetical order of country, except USA and Canada).

Country	Alternate title/Translation	TV Network(s)	Series Premiere	Weekly Schedule
United States		CBS Television (first run) and Spike TV (syndication)	October 6 2000	Thursdays 9:00pm ET
Canada		CTV and CBS (first run)	October 6 2000	Thursdays 9:00pm ET
		Showcase, Showcase Action and Spike TV (syndication)		Monday to Thursday at 11:00pm ET and Sundays at 4:00pm ET. Show may be delayed due to previous program running late
Canada (Quebec)	Les Experts (French) ("The Experts")	Séries Plus
Argentina		Canal 9 and Sony Entertainment Television (cable)
Australia		Nine Network
Austria		ORF1	July 2 2002
Belgium		VT4		Tuesday at 10.30 pm
Bolivia		Sony Entertainment Television(cable)
Brazil	CSI - Investigação Criminal ("CSI - Criminal Investigation")	Rede Record and Sony Entertainment Television (cable)
Bulgaria	Oт местопрестъплението	Nova Televizia
Chile	CSI - En la Escena del Crimen	Canal 13 and Sony Entertainment Television (cable)		Sundays to Thursdays, after midnight
China		China Entertainment Television
Colombia		Sony Entertainment Television (cable)
Costa Rica		Teletica and Sony Entertainment Television (cable)
Croatia	Ekipa za Očevid, later CSI: Las Vegas ("Crime scene Investigators")	Croatian Radiotelevision (HRT) (new episodes) and RTL Televizija (older episodes)
Cyprus		LTV
Czech Republic	Kriminálka Las Vegas ("Crime department Las Vegas")	TV Nova	July 7 2005
Denmark		Kanal 5		Tuesdays at 8.00 pm
Ecuador		Sony Entertainment Television (cable)
Estonia	C.S.I.: Kriminalistid ("C.S.I.: Criminalists")	TV3		Mondays 8:30pm
Fiji		FijiONE
Finland		MTV3	September 22 2001	Wednesdays 9:00pm and 11:00pm
France	Les Experts ("The Experts")	TF1	November 25 2001
Germany	CSI – Tatort Las Vegas later CSI – Den Tätern auf der Spur ("CSI – hunting the offenders")	VOX, since November 2006 RTL	September 5 2001	Thursdays 9:15pm
Greece		ALTER and ET1
Honduras		Sony Entertainment Television (cable)
Hong Kong	滅罪鑑證科 ("Crime-eliminating Forensic Department")	ATV World and AXN
Hungary	Helyszínelők ("Crime Scene Investigators")	Viasat3	September 1 2002
Iceland		Skjár 1
India		AXN
Indonesia		Indosiar
Ireland		Channel 6 and RTÉ
Israel		Channel 1 and Xtra HOT	November 17 2001
Italy	C.S.I.: Scena del crimine ("CSI: Crime Scene Investigation")	Fox Crime (Sky TV) and Italia1	September 13 2002
Japan	(CSI: Scientific Criminal Investigation Team)	AXN		Saturdays 11:00pm JST
		WOWOW	April, 2002	Saturdays 10:00pm JST
		TV Tokyo	April, 2003	Mondays 22:00pm JST
Jordan
Kenya		Kenya Television Network (KTN)
Latvia		TV3
Lithuania	CSI Kriminalistai ("CSI Criminalists")	TV3
Lebanon		LBCI
Macedonia		A1 TV
Malaysia		AXN and ntv7
Mexico	CSI - En la Escena del Crimen	Televisa's Canal 5 and Sony Entertainment Television (cable)
The Netherlands		RTL 4 and RTL 5	August 8 2001	Sundays and Mondays 8:30pm
New Zealand		TV3 and SKY Television (SKY 1)
Nicaragua		Sony Entertainment Television (cable)
Norway		TVNORGE	April 16 2001
Panama	CSI - En la Escena del Crimen	TVMax (Spanish) and Sony Entertainment Television (cable)		Mondays 7:00pm
Paraguay	CSI - En la Escena del Crimen	SNT and Sony Entertainment Television (cable)
Peru		Sony Entertainment Television (cable)
Philippines		AXN and Studio 23 (ABS-CBN)
Poland	Kryminalne zagadki Las Vegas ("Crime Scene Las Vegas")	TVP2 and AXN
Portugal	CSI: Crime Sob Investigação ("CSI: Crime Under Investigation")	AXN and SIC
Romania	CSI: Crime şi Investigaţii ("CSI: Crimes and Investigations")	TVR 1 and Prima TV
Russia	CSI: Место преступления ("CSI: Crime Scene")	DTV-viasat		Daily 22:00 MSK
Saudi Arabia and Arab World		Showtime Arabia, Tv Land, Tv Land +2 (Subtitled) and One TV	----	----
Serbia	Mesto zločina(Cyrilic:Место злочина) (Crime Scene)	RTS		Monday to Friday at 23:00 CET
Singapore		MediaCorp and AXN
Slovakia		TV JOJ
Slovenia		POP TV
South Africa		M-Net and SABC3		Tuesdays 8:30pm (M-Net) and Thursdays 8:30pm (SABC 3)
South Korea		AXN, Orion Cinema Network and MBC
Spain	CSI	AXN (cable) and Telecinco	July 15 2002
Sri Lanka		Art TV
Sweden		Kanal 5 (first run) and Viasat Crime (syndication)	September 3 2001
Switzerland	French region speaking title: Les Experts ("The Experts") German region speaking title: CSI – Tatort Las Vegas ("CSI – crime scene Las Vegas")	SF2, TSI2 and TSR	August 21 2001
Taiwan	CSI 犯罪現場 ("CSI Crime Scene")	AXN (first-run) and Videoland MAX-TV (syndication)
Thailand	ทีมงานตามล่าหาความจริง ("The Truth Chasing Team") ไขคดีปริศนา ("Solving Mysterious Cases") VCD and DVD subtitle	AXN (from the cable broadcaster, UBC)
Turkey	Kanıt Peşinde ("Seeking for evidence")	TRT
United Kingdom		Channel Five (first run), Five US (syndication) and LIVINGtv (cable)	June 9 2001
Uruguay	CSI - En la Escena del Crimen	Canal 10 and Sony Entertainment Television (cable)		Tuesdays 10:00pm
Ukraine		Channel NTN, [[ and LIVINGtv		Mondays - Thursdays 10:45pm
Venezuela	CSI - En la Escena del Crimen	Televen and Sony Entertainment Television (cable)

U.S. Broadcast History

• September 2000 - January 2001 -- Fridays 9:00pm/8:00pm
• January 2001 - present -- Thursdays 9:00pm/8:00pm

See also

• CSI Effect
• List of CSI: Japan voice actors
• List of CSI: Korea voice actors

References

External links

• CSI Official website at CBS
• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation at the Internet Movie Database
• CSI Music Index at TuneFind

• CSI News

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