Fake Science: CSI Makes Me Want to Smack Someone
Every time I watch a movie or TV I find myself scrutinizing the technology, in some cases to the point where it prevents me from enjoying the show. I could never watch a complete episode of CSI, I think a vein in my forehead would burst. Fake science is a huge peeve of mine. It isn’t so much that it’s fake, but that it’s absurdly fake. The sheer notion that the same person would be securing a crime scene, collecting evidence, interviewing suspects, and processing lab work is ridiculous. “Oh yes, let me just flip this switch to test this DNA against the DNA of everyone EVAR in five minutes using state of the art equipment, which hasn’t even been invented yet, purchased with our department’s tiny budget.”
I don’t expect technology in entertainment to function exactly as it would in the real world, but I do expect not to hear your stock lab tech character to spew some complete steaming garbage about flux capacitors, etc. Where this has become particularly bad lately is on Law and Order: SVU, some of my favorite awfulness from the recent “ripped from the headlines” episode about a fake Second Life.
Enter the excellent work of Mark Coleran, designer of fictional interfaces. I have to wonder is his job incredibly difficult because the interfaces must look real, or incredibly easy because no one knows the difference?
Ah yes, fake science. Dana and I have discussed this same thing before. One of the particularly great things in CSI is the transparent double sided 40something inch monitors they have for their computers. Awesome. Where’s mine?
I saw the L&O:SVU episode of which you speak. It was awhile ago, though, so you might have to refresh my memory. When they went to the head honcho of the fake second life, wasn’t his office a gigantic room, dimly lit with a computer on a desk with a giant monitor? Didn’t he just punch a few keys and track every “player” of the game in a matter of seconds and pinpoint exactly what the detectives were after? Especially hilarious was finding the exact specs for a fake cabin that resembles a real cabin and geolocating it as a result. FTW!
What makes this stop being funny is when stupid people in real life think that crimes can be solved in this exact manner. I remember the days when I would see mothers crying because the cops killed their gun-toting, liquor-store-robbing, ready-to-kill-a-cop, nearly adult children saying things like, “The cop didn’t have to kill my baby! The cop could have just shot him in the knee or shot the gun out of my son’s hand.”
Yeah, right! That’s exactly what they are learning in the police academy. /sarcasm
So true. Due to an inexplicable fixation on Vincent D’Onofrio, I watch a lot of L&O: CI, but I always yell at them for getting the computer stuff wrong. They did a computer game episode a couple of years back that was full of holes.
My other favorite thing about the fake science is how the technican will call saying, “Hey, I found something,” and then proceed to actually do the experiment in front of the detectives - or, even worse, do it again. Because they won’t believe it if they don’t see it.
Oh yes, the faux-Second Life dude not only had giganto monitor, but a wall of many many monitors from which he was tracking every single player of the game, and then magically flipped a switch to make it daytime in the game. The most bizarre part about the fake cabin that was actually a real cabin was if all the places in the game had a real physical analog, where was the strip club the girl started in the game?
As someone who grew up with police parents I agree about tv giving people ridiculous misconceptions on how law enforcement works. (Most people don’t realize police are only allowed to shoot to kill, gunfire is deadly force and certain criteria must be met to necessitate deadly force.”)
aha! didn’t know about the police parents, beth. i’m married to a cop, so that is where my cynical frame of reference is grounded.