Television Digressions

By Orion Walker

September 9, 2002

You know how sometimes a show isn't particularly good, but sometimes you find yourself watching it because the girl in it is kinda cute?

You can imagine then what a small world it seems like when Christa Miller leaves the moribund Drew Carey Show and is replaced by Cynthia Watros from the late, uncomfortable Titus. One could imagine from watching Titus that Watros of all people could be moving on to better things (or at least erotic thrillers). But does the Drew Carey Show qualify as a better thing? Surely that's lateral movement at best, 8 seasons or no. It's enough to make you re-evaluate whether erotic thrillers are really up or down from there, career-wise. Isn't it? Cynthia?

Anyway, supposedly her character is a stripper, so obviously i'll watch. But in my defense, there really isn't anything else on this week.

Hopefully, Miller's escape from Careyland means she'll be more of a presence on the coming season of Scrubs, where she stood out last season as Dr. Cox's mean, slutty ex-wife. Not only is that a more obvious upward move for her (seeing as it's probably the best Thursday at 8:30 show NBC's had since Family Ties), but more of her character is exactly what the show needs. That and fewer Ally McBeal dream sequences, although that goes for every show.

The thing that really baffles me about some actors is why they'd leave a great show for a lousy show. Sure, it's gotta look like a good career move for Emily Procter (or at least Emily Proctor's agent) to leave her recurring role as Ainsley Hayes on West Wing for a starring role on the new CSI:Miami. Except for that it means leaving THE WEST WING for CSI-FUCKING-MIAMI! Isn't it the ambition of any artist to be a part of the best art possible? Is it entirely lost on her and entire circle of advisors that West Wing is one of the best shows of this era while CSI:Miami, as a clone of a cosmic piece of shit, is fairly likely to also be a cosmic piece of shit? Is that truly not supposed to matter? (Memo to David Caruso: go back to NYPD Blue! It's not too late!)

Of course blind spots when it comes to CSI seem to be all too common. The critics, the Emmy voters, even the Nielsen families seem to sing the show's praises. I'm not just being bitter that they keep poaching good West Wing actresses (Jorja Fox, who played that cool secret service agent, was their first victim) when I say this show has sported enough bad writing to be called the Dawson's Creek of crime procedurals. I taped a 5-minute clip of one of CSI's early episodes, and it's all I've ever had to show someone to convince them of this show's radiant dumbness:

William Peterson, as the always-right Grissom, is talking to one of his innumerable intellectual inferiors, in this case a young-looking detective, over the body of a man who's evidently fallen to his death.

Grissom: So he pulled a Louganis, huh? [Nice. Tasteful.]

Stupid detective: Yeah, 150 feet. The Giga-Millions curse strikes again. The past four winners have turned up either dead or missing. What do you think, Grissom, conspiracy? [Or possibly cheap exposition?]

Grissom: Coincidence. I worked those four cases. There was never any evidence of foul play. [I am all-knowing, do not question me, young snot.] Was he in town with anybody?

Stupid detective: His girlfriend. She's upstairs in police custody. Do you want to talk to her?

Grissom: Not yet. [It wasn't my idea so it must be wrong.] Right now, I want to talk to him. [End of scene....right?]

Stupid detective: How do you talk to a dead body? [What means this word, "metaphor"?]

Grissom: I let him talk to me, actually. [Stop...] In fact, he just spoke. [Stop, please...] Didn't you hear him? [I'm begging you...] He just told me that he didn't commit suicide.[For the love of god, end the scene!]

Stupid detective: Uh...you lost me. [Goddamnit, how'd you make detective?]

Grissom: This guy fell to his death wearing prescription eyeglasses. Jumpers take their glasses off. [End. Of. Scene.] Suicide is the ultimate form of selfishness, detective. It's unlikely that anyone cowardly enough to take his own life would be brave enough to watch his own death. [I see. That priceless bit of profundity must be what this scene felt it had to share with us before it could end.]

Stupid detective: You can tell all that just my looking at a pair of eyeglasses? [Did we forget to mention that Grissom is amazingly-wonderfully-brilliant?]

Grissom: You have no idea. [Thank you, Claus Von Bülow.]

When it comes to that level of pompous arrogance, he'd fit right alongside the Mooninites from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. At least their culture is advanced beyond all that we can possibly comprehend with one hundred percent of our brains.

Note to producers of cop shows: it's really boring and obnoxious to watch the same guy always come up with the right answers, always be perfect and infallible, always correct the mistakes of his supposedly brilliant colleagues, always besting the criminal with a clever ruse, who then always gives said cop an impressive look of respect as he's carted away in handcuffs. It's boring and obnoxious to watch William Petersen do it, it's even boring and obnoxious to watch Vincent D'Onofrio do it...can't you just imagine how it'll be watching David Caruso? It's a basic rule of dramatic symmetry that a brilliant cop should have equally pronounced flaws. Sipowicz. McNulty on The Wire. Hell, even Monk, while stupifyingly plotted, manages to find an engaging balance between Idiot-cop and Savant-cop.

Sometimes I think the problem with television is the people making it don't have time to watch it. If they did, this would be obvious to them.

But I digress.

-- OW!