Grissom Needs a Clue

My wife is an undying fan of CBS' "CSI" program. So much so, in fact, that I found it impossible to dissuade her from bringing her television with her when we got married (I had not owned a television previously). So now I watch "CSI" every week, although I have managed to maintain a ban on all other programs.

I can't truthfully say that I don't enjoy "CSI." I had trouble admitting this until I found out that Quentin Tarantino directed last year's season finale; I figured that if Tarantino approved of the show, I could do the same without losing excessive amounts of respect for myself. Which is not to say that I find the program particularly ingenious or the characters especially memorable. I do find, however, that the show is consistently entertaining, and that the staggering improbabilities which are a staple of the plots are usually well-concealed--which is more than can be said for most television programs.

I have noticed a peculiarity in William Petersen's character, though. "Gil Grissom" seems intended to be a sort of "in-the-trenches" intellectual, a guru of the cop-show universe. Petersen succeeds in his role, I think, to an extent: the encyclopedic knowledge, the corny jokes, the personal idiosyncracies mesh well in his performance, creating a believable "sage of law enforcement melodrama." Grissom is normally the character who offers whatever commentary the show's writers wish to provide on the larger implications of each program's events. The amusing thing, though, is that Grissom's outlook is that of scientific positivism.

This was evident in one of Grissom's sentiments, aired in the 2005-2006 season: "The evidence never lies." I found this very funny; it seemed as if Rudolf Carnap had been reincarnated as a character on broadcast television. Grissom consistently utters aphorisms that reveal the perspective of a naive species of scientific materialism that was discredited 50 years ago; I mean to say that he sounds like a logical positivist. This point of view is not really taken seriously today, except by scientists who ignore the philosophy of science, as well as by 99% of "Popular Mechanics" subscribers.

So, I would like to take up Grissom's challenge, aired repeatedly on the ads for the season's last shows ("There's always a clue: can you find it?") and give it back to him: "There's always an interpetive framework: can you find one that has been credible within recent memory?"