Excedrin Headache #43

I saw part of csi last night, the one with David Caruso. Why is this dreck so popular? Most of the acting by the regulars is utterly atrocious, sometimes rising to forced caricatures and fakey emotions. The decent acting where it appears are characters for which you can have no sympathy. Take Caruso's character. It is believable compared to others in the show, but a still an over the top tedious, pretentious, judgmental character. All the boorishness of Sgt Friday from the old Dragnet show, but without the wry (sometimes self-effacing) wit and human warmth. Never thought I'd talk of human warmth in Webb's character. I remember loving Webb when he showed up on the Tonight Show, and generally had Johnny in stitches. I've never seen Caruso on Letterman or Ferguson, yet I can't imagine humility in the man. If he has it, which I suspect he does, he is a brilliant actor in need of an artistic outlet. But the Caruso csi character's total lack of humility or humanity makes it pretty unappealing, especially compared to old formulaic cop shows.

Last night's show, the bit I watched, consisted of cops badgering witnesses, one for selling high performance tires to the victim, making a ponderous point, over and over and over and..., that he was somehow responsible for the death by selling high performance tires to a teen-ager who got his head lopped off doing a stunt. How fucking stupid can you get? Yeah, sell the kid inferior tires for his racing around, and it will save him from decapitation when sticking is head out of the sunroof. Now there's a great idea. Does anyone actually sympathize with the bizarre and preachy law enforcement characters in these shows? Maybe if they got preachy about sensible things, or had half a drop of humanity in the characters to water down their overbearing smugness and self-righteousness they'd be bearable. I didn't even wait for the commercial to switch it off.

Even trying to write about the show makes me sound a bit officious like all the cop characters. I know real cops, used to hang with them when I was in the Navy. They are human, and compassionate. That is what burns them out, and the portrayal of assholes burning out does not ring true. They're the ones that don't. These characters are written as one dimensional, but not so much so that the acting/directing combo could create some near reality based and complex characters. I can only assume the producers/advertisers won't allow it. Too bad. There is some real acting talent in these shows, though you mostly see it in the witnesses and perpetrators who are more likely to be real, though the villains are often as one dimensional as the cops when the writers get lazy.

I don't watch much network tv, but I often see snippets of csi as channel 7 (CBS) is my default as I use the news as my alarm. They always leave me with the same after-taste. And when they can't figure out some unbelievable plot to go along with the unbelievable premise that csi constitutes real law enforcement, they simply write about some mysterious terrorist, without any believable motivations or goals, just a make believe boogie man to go for the Wes Craven angle.

And the major networks can't figure out why they keep losing market share. I turned off cable at my house, even though I could get some basic stuff for free with the cable modem. Shows like this and the *700 club are the reason I refuse to make an effort to bring them into my house, and am willing to make a minor effort to purge them. If you are disgusted with what is on tv, disconnect cable/satellite. I don't miss it, and even though it would be free I'm happier knowing I've made an insignificant statement about network programming. Enough insignificant statements...

Why does this shitty programming bother me so much right now? Maybe because I was friends with one of the guest stars this Summer while we were doing The Merchant of Venice. Not really, though it may add something to my irritation that his talents may be squandered. No, it is mostly the anger of portraying cops as omnipotent warriors without meaningful restraint. It does not reflect the real world, and worse yet it glorifies the attitude and mob cowardice that have led to our current state of affairs in this country. As a nation we act out of fear more than for all other reasons combined. Were we always this way, or is this mob cowardice a (hopefully) transient psychotic episode our nation is going through? This sort of show is wonderful propaganda for maintaining a fear based culture, while removing restraint from the hands of public servants.

I'm sure not every episode is vile in the way I've described, and I've seen parts of shows that don't seem to be anything more offensive than incredibly pretentious, which I can generally deal with. Most of them though... Well, who needs emetics?

*Repeat rant from a couple months ago: And the 700 club, Pat Robertson's personal evangelical instrument for the dissemination hate and implementation of international assassination is on Disney's f@@@ing ABC family channel!