CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is a popular CBS network series, running since October 2000, about a team of forensic scientists. It is set in Las Vegas, Nevada in the present. It airs in the USA and several TV channels throughout Europe, Asia, Australia and South America.
The team investigate mysterious and unusual deaths to determine who killed them and how, and also solve other serious crimes such as rape.
The main characters include the head of CSI, Gil Grissom (played by William Petersen), a forensic entomologist who knows sign language and has inherited a disease which is causing him to slowly go deaf. He has two men and two women on his team:
- Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger), a blood spatter analyst
- Sarah Sidle (Jorja Fox), a materials and element analyst
- Warrick Brown (Gary Dourdan), an audio/visual analyst
- Nick Stokes (George Eads), a hair and fiber analyst
The series is well known for its unusual camera angles, high tech gadgets, detailed technical discussion and graphic portrayal of bullet trajectories, blood spray patterns, organ damage, methods of evidence recovery (e.g. fingerprints from the inside of latex gloves) and crime reconstructions.
A spinoff series, CSI: Miami, began in 2002; this stars David Caruso. A second spinoff, CSI: New York, will premiere in fall 2004.
Currently, the series is consistently the #1 popular show according to the Nielsen Ratings. It has been speculated that part of the reason of the show's popularity, especially after the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks, is the comforting idea conveyed that there are skilled experts working to expose the mysterious threats in the world and help bring them to justice, no matter how skillfully they elude pursuit.
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