nixsight

Trying something a bit quicker this time out, as I’m quite strapped for time. So, five points about each of the shows we’ve been watching.

Criminal Minds Season 1: 01-02

From the first scene, the show has a great use of camera angles and music to build a sense of threat and tension.

Mandy Patinkin totally owns in this show.

Because of this, at least in the pilot, all of the supporting characters, while useful, are almost interchangeable.

At this point, the show shows wonderful restraint, in that it doesn’t revel in it’s own gimmicks like some procedurals do early on.

It runs at a different pace than the other commercial procedurals, and comes across as altogether more thoughtful or intelligent.

The Office Season 3: 07-08

Interesting seeing the dynamics of the two offices as they meet each other.

Michael is always much, much more embarassing to watch when characters from outside the office are exposed to him. Which almost means that his employees are accepting of his excesses.

The Jim/Pam awkwardness, now that they’re back in the same office together, is deliciously hellish and beautifully played, especially now that Jim has a new girl!

Jim: “Say what you want about Michael Scott, but he would never do that.”

Andy Bernard and Dwight’s powerplays against each other are brilliant and cringeworthy, especially when it turns out that they’re futile, because Jim is actually second in command. Dwight knows everything about films. He has seen two hundred and forty.

CSI Season 9: 02-05

Great, cinematic filming and production values, this season, so far.

Well-delivered dramatic storylines, with Grissom and the team coming to terms with Warick’s death, and Sarah’s leaving again at the forefront.

New girl is great, and Lady Heather turns up in Ep. 5. Yay! I love Melinda Clarke!

In a continuation of my one major issue with the last couple of seasons, the forensic examination in these episodes is almost non-existent – the crimes are all solved through data-mining, interrogation and happenstance. What always made this show different was the “science!”, and I miss it. It was pretty.

Odd as it may sound, the corpses this season are all out of wack. In 0902 – The Happy Place, the main body of the day is a woman whose bones apparently liquefied when she leapt from a very tall building onto a bus, and they made a “thing” about her limbs being rubbery and floppy, but in every episode since, the dead limbs have seemed to bend in the same fake looking way. Whereas their eyes have had a lot of attention paid to them. This is a step in the wrong direction – the bodies in CSI have always been getting progressively more awesome, and are what gives the show’s forensic bits a lot of their credibility.