CSI:ZX

Kevin Reilly

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Feb 2, 2008, 6:05:35 PM2/2/08

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Nice to see the CSI foley department have been raiding the Sinclair
archives again. Further to this thread of a couple of years ago...

http://tinyurl.com/2gg5w4

...tonight's episode of the ever more bizarre CSI:NY featured a deceased
physics professor and his "time machine", the machine consisting of a
room full of assorted stock mad scientist hardware (especially the
ever-popular plasma balls) and accompanied by assorted Hollywood sound
effects clichés including a very familiar tape loading noise buried in
the background:

http://www.denali.org.uk/csi/csiny.mp3

This isn't perhaps as clear as when it was used in CSI:Miami, due to its
burial among all the other stock SF effects, but it's definitely in
there.

The Spectrum lives on! If only in increasingly far-out US forensics
procedurals.

--
Kev
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Brian Gaff

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Feb 3, 2008, 3:33:27 AM2/3/08

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For the record, I understand that the series had become too realistic as
crooks were using the ideas to try to get away with crimes. I wondered if
pressure had been put on them to be a bit less accurate.

Brian

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Kevin Reilly

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Feb 3, 2008, 7:30:44 AM2/3/08

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On Sun, 3 Feb 2008 Brian Gaff wrote:

>crooks were using the ideas to try to get away with crimes. I wondered if
>pressure had been put on them to be a bit less accurate.

It's possible, although I do think the two spin-off series have become
driven by style rather than substance, with a corresponding increase in
those more outrageous script elements. The original Vegas-based show is
still quite dark and serious. If any criminals are getting ideas from a
CSI series it's probably that one.

Actually this latest NY episode ultimately turned out to be quite
clever, the twist being that the physicist who believed he was
time-travelling was in fact suffering mild seizures and was just
naturally adept at probability analysis. He wasn't seeing the future,
just predicting behaviour with uncanny accuracy. I'm glad even CSI:NY
wasn't far-out enough to suggest actual time-travel was going on,
although the outrageousness of last week's riff on the Bond movies did
give me cause for concern.

Hollywood sound effects do make me laugh, though. It's as though they
have one master tape with a half-dozen effects labelled "computer" or
"laboratory" and use them over and over. In the CSI clip, the other
sound that's mixed in with the Sinclair loading sound (the one that's
like an electronic trill with a pitch rise at the end) has been around
for decades. It's shown up in almost every SF series since Buck Rogers.
Buy some new CDs, guys.

--
Kev
__________________________________________________________________________
"I can't remember if I told you to stop forgetting."
Attourney General John Mitchell

Brian Gaff

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Feb 3, 2008, 12:12:13 PM2/3/08

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Yes as well as the ref to Dr Who, there was a sound a bit like the Tardis in
the sound effects.

Off topic I know, but in one csi they had a gang using some form of
ultrasound device to break glass. It was small and I had to laugh, as the
power needed to do what this did would have meant some kind of massive psu,
and the hand holding it would have been damaged.

Brian

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spi...@freenet.co.uk

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Feb 3, 2008, 1:39:39 PM2/3/08

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Brian Gaff <bri...@blueyonder.co.uk> did eloquently scribble:

> Yes as well as the ref to Dr Who, there was a sound a bit like the Tardis in
> the sound effects.

> Off topic I know, but in one csi they had a gang using some form of
> ultrasound device to break glass. It was small and I had to laugh, as the
> power needed to do what this did would have meant some kind of massive psu,
> and the hand holding it would have been damaged.

Was it a direct contact to the glass device?
Cos it REALLY wouldn't take that much power to do it if the device could
scan through the frequencies until it found the glass's resonant frequency.