CBS crime dramas spilling over into sci fi

[jefferiestubes8]

Sliders, Quantum Leap were one type of series but another one sounds awfully similar to Source Code:
Seven Days (1998-2001 UPN TV series)

The plot follows a secret branch of the United States' National Security Agency who have developed a time travelling device based upon alien technology found at Roswell. As the opening of the show says, the Chronosphere, or Backstep Sphere, sends "one human being back in time seven days" to avert disasters. The show's name refers to the fact that the Backstep Project can only backstep seven days because of limitations imposed by the fuel source and its reactor

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_(TV_series)

Ill have to look it up on Netflix as I've not seen it. A commentet on the quiet Earth website mentioned it. Sounds like a good show.

 

[Christopher]

^I found Seven Days mediocre. It did have Norman Lloyd in it, though, and he's cool. (He was Picard's mentor Professor Galen in TNG's "The Chase," and of course much earlier was a member of Orson Welles's Mercury Theater and the villain in Hitchcock's Saboteur.)

 

[TremblingBluStar]

So yeah, I think CSI can validly be called science fiction. It's an alternate universe where science and technology more advanced than our own is integrated more fully into police work. This universe also tends to have a disproportionate number of serial killers who follow the careers of these glamorous science cops and go out of their way to challenge them.

I agree with everything you wrote.

It's also a universe where 99% of murders involve rich, beautiful white people and some elaborate scheme or conspiracy.

In reality, most murders are in impoverished areas, and involve minorities and other criminal activity, such as drug dealing, rape, or gang activity. Especially in Miami.

I remember the one CSI Miami episode I saw that tried to depict a gang related murder was almost comical in it's depiction of African Americans as gangsta rapper stereotypes.

 

[JarodRussell]

So yeah, I think CSI can validly be called science fiction. It's an alternate universe where science and technology more advanced than our own is integrated more fully into police work. This universe also tends to have a disproportionate number of serial killers who follow the careers of these glamorous science cops and go out of their way to challenge them.

I agree with everything you wrote.

It's also a universe where 99% of murders involve rich, beautiful white people and some elaborate scheme or conspiracy.

In reality, most murders are in impoverished areas, and involve minorities and other criminal activity, such as drug dealing, rape, or gang activity. Especially in Miami.

I remember the one CSI Miami episode I saw that tried to depict a gang related murder was almost comical in it's depiction of African Americans as gangsta rapper stereotypes.

CSI Miami is - and I believe it's intentional - a more comic book version of CSI. I remember reading an interview with David Caruso where he was fully aware of the cheesiness and awkwardness of Horatio Cane. It's like the Baywatch of crime shows. The characters and their interaction is superficial at best, nothing compared to the characters in CSI Las Vegas, for example.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

It's like the Baywatch of crime shows.

I thought that's what Baywatch Nights was for!