User Reviews

Man vs. Gravity. Man lost.

Angora goat hair found on the body of a 14 year old boy(his cranium was cracked upon supposedly a major seizure)and his therapist's sweater are questionable signs of possible sexual abuse and possible murder. The bizarre therapeutic technique of "rebirthing" might be the reason for this unfortunate incident. The therapist has a history of sexual misconduct with the patient. The victim's mother recently lost her husband, the kid was in therapy for behavioral problems. During this case Catherine finds out why Nick is so motivated to finger the therapist..he was the victim of sexual abuse at nine years old thanks to a babysitter! A construction worker who "fell" from several stories while working on a floor of a soon-to-be jailhouse, could've been electrocuted thanks to a nail through his rubber-soled boot and power drill missing a prong in its cord essential for halting possible dangerous current, and a motivated Gil Grissom, much to the chagrin of the sheriff eager for the construction to continue as planned, will pursue the case as long as possible until his evidence solves the "crime." When the sheriff's buddy, Harris, over the construction of the new jailhouse, becomes a suspect due to his fingerprints being found on a pair of pliers at the scene where the victim fell, Grissom's case becomes immersed in further difficulties(Gil's relationship with the sheriff is intense to say the least). A partial print on the nail in the victim's boot, an electrician's desire that Gil continue to pursue Harris(this man says Harris threatened him), and a separate pair of pliers all could answer what Grissom believes is a murder instead of suicide. How Grissom uses electricity, blood pulled from the victim's body, a pickle, and a light bulb to prove his theory of electrocution goes to show you how dedicated he is to solving the mystery when others feel he should move on..it looked like the perfect case of suicide, but looks can be deceiving.

I've only seen a few episodes of this rather challenging series and this is one of the better ones so far. Two crimes are investigated by this team of superduper Sherlocks: (1) a worker falls several stories at a constructions site and may have been murdered; (2) a teen-aged boy is found dead of a cracked skull in the home office of a psychiatrist but appears to have been in his underwear at some point.

The dead worker was some kind of union troublemaker. He was operating a metal cutter at the time he fell off the platform and was evidently electrocuted before he hit the ground. Yes, it was the result of a very clever murder plan. He couldn't have been electrocuted if the equipment were working properly and, even if it weren't, he was wearing rubber soled boots that should have insulated him. However, the "ground" prong was amputated from his three-pronged plug, the wires in the metal cutter's power cord had been twisted and "the polarity reversed", and a nail in the instep of his rubber-soled boot had provided the necessary ground for the current. Got that?

Some slight problems though in the plot. The writers may not be as smart as they seem to think, or else they don't care. The ground prong isn't necessary. We managed to get along without them on household appliances for about 100 years.

Second, so the positive and negative wires in the cable were twisted and the polarity reversed? So what? The equipment would have run anyway, though not as efficiently. But, in fact, the wires we see inside the cable aren't even insulated. The positive and negative wires are bare and twisted around one another. That would have caused an immediate short circuit and, though it probably wouldn't have electrocuted anyone, it might have blown the circuit breakers to bits.

Also, we're compelled to ask, how far did that nail penetrate the instep of the rubber boot? Was it in far enough to touch his flesh and complete a circuit? If so, why the hell was he wearing that particular boot? And how does a nail in a boot's instep manage to reach the floor?

Well, never mind. This is fiction, after all, and it's kind of fun. And challenging fun at that. At any moment you're liable to hear a quote from H. L. Mencken or a dummy's guide to chaos theory. I wish they hadn't given Nick's zeal such a thoroughly corrupt explanation. When he was nine years old he was molested by his baby sitter, presumably a teen-aged girl. That's no excuse at all. If my family had been able to afford a baby sitter and she was a teen-aged girl and I were molested by her when I was nine years old, I wouldn't have been traumatized. I'd have been thrilled. New vistas would have opened before me.

The acting is subdued. The humor is subdued too, and that's okay. But why is the lighting subdued as well? Are CSI labs really so DARK? It makes for more dramatic images, I guess, but really if the lights were any lower the investigators would be tripping all over each other.

Grissom made a comment "On the day you were going to end your life, would you go to work?" Well, yeah, and it happened at East Fairmont High School, around 1972...the Algebra teacher walked out of the class...walked about a mile down to the high level bridge, and he jumped. His daughter was a very popular student at the high school..on the prom and homecoming courts...so, it happens.

Obviously the writers know nothing about electricity. 1st off changing polarity of a rotary hammer does not create a short, it changes the direction of the drill itself (makes it go in reverse) most drills have a switch to do that very thing. In order to create what they were saying you would have to attach the load or the hot wire to the metal casing of the drill. 2nd GFIs do not use the grounding prong. They measure the current leaving and returning (the power and the common wires) if they don't match the GFI interrupts the current. Henceforth if there was any GFI in the circuit there would have been no electrocution. 3rd, they reference the car and a lightning storm. The rubber tires is an old wives tale, they provide no protection. When there is lightening there is also water, water carries many elements that conduct electricity. If you are in the car you are safe because electricity follows the easiest path, the metal body of the car which you are insulated from by the interior, just like a plane. And I might add, the whole metal frame and body is a ground.