Dumbing Down...
Oct. 6th, 2007 11:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
j_cheneyOne of the things that worries me is that things have to be dumbed down in order for them to make it in the mass market. ::sigh::
In the CSI episode Thursday night, the writers screwed up the evidence, apparently with the assumption that no one would catch the mistake because the viewers are....too dumb? Both![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
displaced_texan and I caught it, though. How irritating.
If you saw it, then you'll recall that they located the body by following the blood-trail left by the head. Where the trail pointed off the road, they located the body just a few steps away, indicating that the point of decapitation occurred there. Later in the episode, though, it was revealed that the decapitation occured while the go-cart was in motion. The head's blood-trail would have started there, while the go-cart continued forward under its inertial motion, and was later pushed into the brush by another character, presumably far ahead of the blood trail's initial spot. To me it seems that if the head was removed by a piece of tire moving at an effective 120 mph, then the head would have continued to move in the oppisite direction. If the cart continued to move, then it would still be rolling away from the initial blood trail. The only way this could have worked is if the character who retrieved the cart, hunted (in the dark) for the initial blood mark, pushed the cart with its decapitated body back to that spot and then dumped the body off the road. Either way, the two evidence points just didn't match up.
SO, there was no reason that the blood trail should ever have pointed off the road--the head didn't ever go off the road, unless there was a lot of spin, which doesn't really make sense--other than convenience for the writers. "Oh, look! It leads directly to the body.' Also the blood trail and the body had no reason to be in the same place.
I really dislike it when writers on TV do that. (Assume that we won't catch a big flaw like that.) Yes, I know they do it all the time. I just wish TV didn't pander to convenience. It's a bit insulting.
Having said that, I will admit that I watched 10 seasons of Stargate to try to figure out how TV plots go. And a great number of them do this. OTOH, Stargate is about adventure, so I can accept some plot errors there. CSI is supposed to be about evidence. Hmmm....
In the CSI episode Thursday night, the writers screwed up the evidence, apparently with the assumption that no one would catch the mistake because the viewers are....too dumb? Both
displaced_texan and I caught it, though. How irritating.If you saw it, then you'll recall that they located the body by following the blood-trail left by the head. Where the trail pointed off the road, they located the body just a few steps away, indicating that the point of decapitation occurred there. Later in the episode, though, it was revealed that the decapitation occured while the go-cart was in motion. The head's blood-trail would have started there, while the go-cart continued forward under its inertial motion, and was later pushed into the brush by another character, presumably far ahead of the blood trail's initial spot. To me it seems that if the head was removed by a piece of tire moving at an effective 120 mph, then the head would have continued to move in the oppisite direction. If the cart continued to move, then it would still be rolling away from the initial blood trail. The only way this could have worked is if the character who retrieved the cart, hunted (in the dark) for the initial blood mark, pushed the cart with its decapitated body back to that spot and then dumped the body off the road. Either way, the two evidence points just didn't match up.
SO, there was no reason that the blood trail should ever have pointed off the road--the head didn't ever go off the road, unless there was a lot of spin, which doesn't really make sense--other than convenience for the writers. "Oh, look! It leads directly to the body.' Also the blood trail and the body had no reason to be in the same place.
I really dislike it when writers on TV do that. (Assume that we won't catch a big flaw like that.) Yes, I know they do it all the time. I just wish TV didn't pander to convenience. It's a bit insulting.
Having said that, I will admit that I watched 10 seasons of Stargate to try to figure out how TV plots go. And a great number of them do this. OTOH, Stargate is about adventure, so I can accept some plot errors there. CSI is supposed to be about evidence. Hmmm....
