Both CSI and CSI: NY last week tackled issues that's literally ripped out of the headlines--although, of course, it's given a killer and the crime lab twist, which is exactly what we should expect.

First up: CSI: NY, which saw a man who's killing off who he thinks is responsible for his worsening condition.  You see, he's got lung cancer, and an advanced state at that, and since he can't get out of his home he has to kill by hacking into stuff--the hospital owner's car, his doctor's food, his nurse's elevator--just so, he says, they can feel what he feels.

And what exactly does he feel?  Hopeless, surely, after a series of unfortunate events: the oncology department at his hospital, where he's getting free treatment. is shutting down, and since he can't afford the alternatives, he has to stop treatment.  After all those phone calls for reconsideration, he decides to just screw it and kill everyone off.  And after watching the news every night hearing stuff about health care reform and all the arguments surrounding it, I thought, I can't have enough health care talk to get me by now, right?

Two problems.  One, he's barking up the wrong tree, considering that the person he's trying to relate with--Mac, whose dad also died of lung cancer--will never agree with the way he's dealing with things.  Talk to a guy who strongly believes in honor and the rule of law, and you'll get just that.  Two, he surely didn't dig through all of the alternatives, and where he failed to get a treatment, he compensates by killing them off?

While it may have been one take on the current state of medical affairs, and all those arguments--"these guys are profit-oriented" and all that--well, CSI: NY could've done better.  Personal opinions aside, the episode failed a bit on that.

Last week's CSI was more successful in this regard, but perhaps because they didn't attempt to make a statement out of it.  The story pretty much revolved around the fallen real estate market--all those foreclosed houses and the banks selling them to whoever will buy them.

In this case, the issue served more as a backdrop to the crime: a man who kills a porn producer and a drug dealer who called his once-upscale neighborhood home.  He put the law in his own hands, and you perfectly understand it (although it's wrong, of course) because you know where he's coming from.  And we take it, because it's not a veiled attempt to preach or something.  It's more of, "That's what happens.  Live with it."

Lesson: doing this sort of stuff always brings mixed results.  Take CSI: Miami, who had stuff about the "American dream" last week but it was something we've seen before...





- Henrik Batallones, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
(Image courtesy of CBS)