"CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" For Warrick (2008)

Director:

Richard J. Lewis

Writers:

Anthony E. Zuiker (creator)
Allen MacDonald (teleplay) ...

TV Series:

"CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" (2000)

Original Air Date:

9 October 2008 (Season 9, Episode 1)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Plot:

CSIs past and present come together at the news of Warrick's death. But will Warrick's real killer successfully frame another police officer for his murder? |

Plot Keywords:

Police Officer Killed | Police Officer Shot | Death Of Friend | Investigation | Crime Lab

Cast

William Petersen	...	Gil Grissom
Marg Helgenberger	...	Catherine Willows
Gary Dourdan	...	Warrick Brown
George Eads	...	Nick Stokes
Eric Szmanda	...	Greg Sanders
Robert David Hall	...	Dr. Al Robbins
Wallace Langham	...	David Hodges
Paul Guilfoyle	...	Captain Jim Brass
Liz Vassey	...	Wendy Simms
David Berman	...	David Phillips
Jorja Fox	...	Sara Sidle
Conor O'Farrell	...	Undersheriff Jeffrey McKeen
Marc Vann	...	Conrad Ecklie
David Gianopoulos	...	Daniel Pritchard
Archie Kao	...	Archie Johnson

Runtime:

Netherlands:55 min (including commercials)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Netherlands:12

Company:

Alliance Atlantis Communications

Quotes:

Captain Jim Brass: Nick, what was that shot?
Nick Stokes: Miss.

Movie Connections:

References The Godfather (1972)

Anticlimactic

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

SPOILERS

At 8.8, this is one of the highest-rated episodes of the entire series, but I have to disagree. My problems with it are as follows:

1. We have a bona fide villain in the department and this should have taken more episodes to solve. As it was, with McKeen's incompetence it was just too easy, so there wasn't any tension.

2. The chase was ridiculous. The cars are following, only a few dozen feet behind the fugitive, but when the fugitive car crashes, nobody sees it. Oh yeah, there's a helicopter right on his tail, too. And a car can't crash through a guard rail that way, running parallel to it, it would just bounce off, or the car would just skid or roll rather than plow through. After the crash, the seriously injured McKeen somehow, and for some reason that escapes me, drags himself a good distance away (he has the time for this, despite the other cars having been a couple of seconds behind). Only Nick follows the bloody trail. We get the usual confession (one of the cheap devices too often used in this and other shows), and with taunting by McKeen, Nick shoots the fugitive! Of course, he deliberately missed...

So, where we could have had some real tension, the writers resorted to the implausible artifice in point 2. I simply can't see how an episode with such cheap devices can be rated so highly. Maybe the viewers did it out of loyalty to the Warrick character, but I felt the character's death merited a better episode than this.