CSI - The Complete Fifth Season

I am gaga googoo over CSI - the Complete Fifth Season. There's 10 plus seasons and Laurence Fishbourne is now a part of the show. There's a New York and a Miami show. There's a fan club.
I'm a tv idiot. I know I've seen CSI in the past. I watch tv, really. I used to even channel surf, you know, once in a while. I've had a remote for decades. Don't touch my remote.
But it was the second or third season of Friends before I 'really' watched that show and knew I was missing a whole lot of entertainment. Then I binged on Friends buying a couple of complete seasons.
I didn't have to do that with Star Trek or Seinfeld. I think I got them all first time round or on re runs. Maybe when you're trying to watch all the Star Trek and Seinfeld you tend to miss new things like the early CSI's. I know there's this other show called 24. I've watched a few episodes of that too. And yes, I know the Family Guy. There's a lot of television out there and I probably don't watch as much as alot of people. No doubt I watch it more than some.
I'm a movie buff. When I had cable I loved the movie channel. Friday or Saturday nights were often a great time for pizza and the latest DVD from the video store. Now I'm without cable tv and the CBC channel I get is snowy and breaks up.
I joined a mail order video rental and so far have enjoyed the first movies that have come out.
That said, I'm really enjoying CSI, complete season. I think TV on DVD is the next best thing to velcro. Commercials are really disruptive. I appreciate that people need to make money but couldn't they be between shows. For instance couldn't the advertisers just have had Kramer dress like a Nascar driver every episode.
I don't think I ever really appreciated CSI because there's so much happening and often it's subtle with lots of interplay between these great psychological characters and commercials broke it up. Without commercials I'm fascinated by the stories, not just the story of the crime but the people.
And what's great about these 4 or 5 episodes to a dvd is that you don't have to watch tv all night. I watch alot less tv than national averages because I have other things to do....study, read, play guitar, write, work on boats, dance, motorcycle, the whole other thing called life, that's not watching other people live but living myself. So I really like that I can have an 45 minute fix of 'tv' and then go on to something else. Much as I love movies they're a lot longer investment of time and one movie takes an evening. Better to go to the movies if one can.
I remember I got my first vcr with the idea that I could tape shows and watch them when I wanted and fast forward through the commercials. I do admire those who take control of the tv and have it serve them. I did that at one time but didn't keep it up. It was just a hassle to pre program the vcr when exhausted at the end of the day eating alone it was easier just to turn on the boob tube and watch whatever was playing around supper.
Years later I have this CSI complete season and what am I doing, what I set out to do originally. There are other complete seasons and I can see myself picking up another just to have them on hand for when I want to 'watch tv' without the tv 'controlling' me.
700 channels and not a single one worth watching is what I remember thinking sometimes when I sat mindlessly channel surfing. I'd rather play electronic chess on the iphone or scrabble solitaire.
TV is a 'parallel' play activity whereas video games are 'interactive' and a step up in terms of mental processing. Then there are those admirable sorts who watch only the Discovery channel and program their minds by being highly selective about what they watch. We are what we watch.
It was once said you could judge a man by his books but today one can better be judged by the 'quality' of entertainment one partakes in. For now I'll stand by CSI. There's propaganda for sure. But no more or less than Star Trek and Seinfeld. But all of these shows are educational in their own way.
Of course I once knew Gray's anatomy mostly cover to cover and could recite the periodic table and draw the structure of insulin. However if I hadn't watched the scene with George screaming 'shrinkage' I'd not be able to relate so entertainingly with others who appreciate the 'common' culture that tv offers us. Metaphors like the "Borg" and a "Ross"that everyone today seems to know are as much part of the language of today as "lucy in the sky with diamonds" once was.
And I absolutely love Dr. House even though he'd lose his license in a flash in Canada for his brilliance and lack of political correctness. Now the Dr. House complete season would be a treasure. One could learn alot of medicine that way if the terribly true politics displayed in the show didn't make it all seem too much like work. The ER series did that though when I was learning all that stuff. I loved the doctor shows as adjunctive education. Maybe CSI appeals because I know alot of the testing and theory but it's sufficiently different to not be like work. The politics is entertaining considering everyone seems to have the idiots and sweethearts to deal with. Makes one's own world seems more tolerable seeing the universality of the human condition.
Whatever flaws television has it's humanizing. I'll stand by all the tv programming I have experienced over the years.
But the soap commercials and tampon ads, what have they done to my brain? Could somebody do a study on the effects of watching hundreds of ads of comparison testing of laundry soaps by equally stupid people. I could use the proceeds from a class action suit just about now.
CSI, without commercials, rocks!!http://www.cbs.com/primetime/csi/ And much as I like alot of PBS, without the pledge times, of course, but we'd not have CSI or House, or Seinfeld or Star Trek or any of the great tv were it not for the very folk who put up the money. All power too them but I'll take the complete season on DVD thank you. And frankly, I'll probably opt for free tv on the internet rather than take the risk exposing my brain to more commercials. I've seen what repetitive concussions has done to some of the football players. There's got to be a toxicity to repetitive exposure to some of the really stupid commercials.