Series star Mandy Patinkin, sensing the lack of love, jumped in.
"If this show isn't fair to women, it won't make me happy, either. I don't think anybody is being funny up here," said Patinkin, an accomplished actor and singer, who has the voice of an angel but apparently hearing that leaves something to be desired.
"I hope what is osmosized through this piece is a moral code somehow, in our behavior," Patinkin continued. "I hope there's a message of ending suffering in our behavior, for the victim. . . . I hope a show like this heightens your awareness . . . that the next time you go online to buy something, you might be a little more aware. . . . The next time you're washing your dishes at a kitchen window and your 4-year-old is in the yard, before you go answer the phone you'll consider who might be able to get into that yard and take your child, et cetera. . . . And yes, we're doing it through an example of an explosive, neon-sign kind of behavior of serial violence."
The old We're Doing It for the Women ploy. Critics heard a lot of that, too.
Patinkin who, while having the voice of an angel, sometimes does wander when speaking at these Q&A sessions, informed critics that the FBI is grateful for shows like "CSI." The bureau has told him it has "absolutely changed the criminal justice system, in terms of people's attitudes towards DNA. It has convicted a number of killers because the juries understand this system better."
Which is interesting, because what we've heard is that prosecutors hate "CSI" because it has given juries unrealistic expectations about the quality, quantity and patness of evidence they'll be presented with in trials.
But Patinkin does bring up a good point. Almost all of these new crime dramas celebrating their debuts by doing heinous things to women are chasing "CSI," the Holy Grail of Broadcast.
What does "CSI" have that other shows lack? Besides a preponderance of story lines about kinky killings of lovely young women, that is.
Young men.
The entire television industry these days is obsessed with the pursuit of young male viewers. Young male viewers are the most elusive viewers. It's because they're so busy doing other things: playing Xbox, downloading music on their iPods, playing Internet poker, pimping their rides. Advertisers pay top dollar for ad time in a show that attracts more males 18 to 34 years old because it's so hard for advertisers to reach them.
And did you know that last season's highest-rated scripted, live-action series among males ages 18 to 34 were "Desperate Housewives," an ABC prime-time soap about a bunch of forty-something hotties on suburban Wisteria Lane, and "CSI"?
Surprising, huh?
