brainwagon

I watch a fair number of crime drama shows. Early on, I really liked CSI. It had some fairly interesting characters, and tried to present some interesting bits of forensics in a stylized dramatic way. But now that it has branched off into three different shows, it simply makes me wince.

The problem is a basic one of belivability. Yes, it’s just a TV show, I understand. But it has to be even roughly plausible or the sense of drama is destroyed. It is supposed to tease you with its plausibility, not surprise you with its absurdity.

For instance, in CSI they’ve taken to using various kinds of image manipulation to find out key bits of evidence. The simple fact is that the kind of image manipulation they do is impossible. You can’t pull an image of someone’s face reflecting in someone’s eye from a security camera image from a distance of thirty feet, or even five feet. It simply can’t be done. There is not 45% overscan in video images. And don’t get started with what they pretend to be able to do with encrypted files and the like.

It is with this feeling of trepidation that I watched the first episode of NUMB3RS. The basic idea is kind of interesting: a math prodigy teams with an FBI investigator to use mathematics to help solve crimes. Surprisingly, the pilot episode didn’t make me cringe excessively, but I can’t help but think that sooner or later they will be jumping the shark in every episode. It’s just too difficult to come up with real ideas that are remotely plausible. Soon, I suspect they will be resorting to simple magic to “poof”, solve crimes.

We shall see…