My New Favorite TV Show: Old Reruns of CSI

For some reason, I have recently gotten into watching old episodes of CSI. I never really watched it when it first came out, but now I find myself watching reruns on Spike TV a lot. Despite being totally unrealistic in terms of what forensic scientists actually do, the show seems quite well written and has a lot of interesting characters. Of course, it doesn’t hurt when two of those characters are played by Marg Helgenberger and Jorja Fox, for whom the acronym CSI might be more appropriate if it stood for Criminally Sexy Investigators. Obviously the writers of the show are pretty hard core forensic nerds who spend a lot of time researching the latest in obscure forensic techniques, although sometimes the show seems to drift into some rather “theoretical” territory.

There is one thing about the show I don’t really get though. Why is it that whenever they investigate a crime scene, they never turn on the lights? It’s one thing if they are investigating a partially burnt down house or they are using a black light to look for, um… evidence, but who the hell looks around a crime scene in the dark with just a flashlight? Is it a fear of harsh, overhead lighting? I mean, when you can’t find your car keys do you turn off all the lights and whip out your Maglite?