Turn the fucking lights on!!!!

Wow, Linda. You sure did some walking.

Little hint. many don't use or know Herald Square. But they do know Macy's.

If you say to a NYer, meet me at Herald Square, they might go HUH?

But if you say meet me at Macy's on the 6th Ave side, then they will understand.

I've walked from the Village to Midtown. Which would be about 35 short blocks. and a 1/3 of Linda's trip.

From what I've heard, L&O prefers to use local talent and, occasionally, non actors as well, all to improve the realism and feel.

That's true I had a friend or two that was on the show. Many of the young people they deal with on street scenes are locals and non actors. But its hard to use non-union actors on major tv shows.

^I've been watchin old Hawaii 5-0s, and they loved to use local "talent" too. Half the extras seemed to be actual Hawaiians off the street.

Meanwhile, of course, any main Asian character was played by a white guy in eyepieces.

I catch some of those 70s crime dramas and they were kinda harsh back then. The drugs the killing. Very crude. I don't see them being able to broadcast many of them anymore.

Indeedy. The Mod Squad is interesting for the 60s issues. Things like drugs and racism don't seem to be discussed as frankly these days.

On reasong that the crime scene investigators don't turn the lights on is the first rule of crime scenes. Don't touch anything! once the switches and such have been dusted for prints, then, and only then, should they be turned on.

Oh that's what I'd been thinking too, keeping the realize as near as possible.

They wear gloves and its pretty easy to flick a wall switch. Even with a finger nail.

What gets me is a cop yelling Freeze! to a suspect some thirty yards away and the resulting foot chase that always follows. Here's a tip, hold off on identifying yourself until you are a bit closer.

Another one is the whole "Keep the caller talking so we can trace the call." crap. Unless my cellphone somehow traveled back through time to share the magic that is the Who Called feature I don't see why you'd ever have to keep anybody on the line to trace a call.

Worse still is the ubiquitous medical examiner who can't share any info over the phone and must summon the detectives to the lab and share some super important info that could not be communicated telephonically.

How that should go:

"You'd better get down here, sir!"

"What is it?"

"It's best if you come down here, sir."

"Last I checked, I'm your fucking supervisor, and I'm in the middle of a meeting with the deceased's family and the chief of police. Tell me what you want, now, or your ass is on the street in 5 minutes."

I laugh at all of them. The CSI gang in real life is a bunch of lab rats. They don't have badges. They certainly don't have guns. They don't talk to suspects. They don't interview people. They don't make arrests. Etc., etc., etc.

The detectives play a minimal role in these shows, but then, how would they show off their super-instant whiz bang technology that doesn't exist!? The fingerprint scanners especially own me. They'll plug in the data and have a "We've got a hit!" moment in ten or so seconds. It takes the FBI months to go through their fingerprint records.

Yeah, that always seemed odd to me that they talked to suspects. I mean really grill them sometimes.

Unfortunately, these shows are having an impact on our judicial system. Jurors now expect that kind of flash and technology, when it's just not there.

They don't understand that it sometimes take six months to get a DNA test back from the crime lab. They don't understand that it takes six weeks to get autopsy results back. They don't understand that it takes from three to six months to get fingerprint data back.

Well I know that from those shows I am now an expert on strangulation and suffocation.

Patikeal(sp?) hemorrhages man! I got that down pat.

Yeah, don't they use that shit every damn week? I do love the shows and understand that it's bullshit but still lvoe them. Problem is, they're getting less original.

That's why I don't watch ANY of them.

I'll watch the occasional Law and Order, but that one seems a bit more grounded in reality than the others.

It took them a while to figger out how to identify themselves at the scene. I remember an early episode where Nick walks into a building and yells "Criminalistics!"



If I was in there I'd yell back "What the fuck did you say?!"

I think now they yell "crime lab!" But I don't see why they don't just yell "Police!" which everybody would understand. They are LVPD, according to the show, ain't they?

"Quick, Ike, do your impersonation of David Caruso's career!"

Are you kidding? You couldn't even make All in the Family these days.

It's a sad commentary on our society that we can't illustrate the ridiculousness of prejudice with humor.