Who is your favorite TV forensic scientist?
By burrito88
@burrito88 (2774)
United States
April 11, 2013 4:48pm CST
This discussion has to start with Quincy. Before there was NCIS, Bones, the CSI's, Body of Proof, etc., crime dramas focused on police or private eyes hunting down the bad guys. Then came Jack Klugman's Quincy (along with his assistant Sam) and suddenly there was a new way to stage TV crime dramas. Klugman's personality also made Quincey seem like a regular guy, who just happened to examine dead bodies.
Following Quincey we now have several new forensic scientists on TV. My favorite now has to be Pauley Perette's Abby Sciuto on NCIS. Sciuto at one time studied criminal science and she makes Abby's quirkiness seem to be at odds with what one would expect from from a presumably staid government organization. I have a little trouble believing she would be able to run all the tests she does without an assistant. With Perrette, I also wonder how many of the tattoos are real. Plus if you like her as an actress, you might look for the short lived show Special Unit 2, which was a short lived show a police squad in Chicago that investigated crimes involving mythical creatures that really exist. She appeared in 4 of the 19 shows as Alice Cramer, the unit's public relations person. What makes those appearances more interesting is that her hair was blonde. (Perette did spend time before acting as a bartender in New York with a white Mohawk hairdo.)
One of the forensic scientists I am most disappointed in is Masi Oka's Max Bergman. Now I am only going by the first few epeisodes of Hawaii Five O, by I found Bergman to be rather stiff and he also seemed to make conclusions right at the scene without really analyzing anything. They may have improved on the character in later shows but to me, Bergman is a disappointment after seeing Oka in Heroes where his character was one of the things that made that show worth watching.
"Bone" Brennan is another TV role I have trouble with. Bones' lack of social skills and apparent ignorance of pop culture seems at odds with what one would expect from an attractive woman. I hope that doen't sound sexist. Of course BOnes' charater is drawn up to be the opposite of Agent Brennan who also tends to lack social skills but in the opposite direction.
Regarding forensic scientists, I wonder how much influence, if any, Jeff Deaver's literary scientist Lincoln Rhyme has had on the influx of TV shows studying forensics. When it comes to books, I also have to mention Ridley Pearson's criminalist Lou Boldt who also changed the way mysteries are written. In this vein, it a shame that The Cosby Mysteries was on TV before it's time. It might have lasted longer today.
1 person likes this
7 responses
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
12 Apr 13
Well, "Bones" is based on a series of books by Kathy Reichs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathy_Reichs
I think a lot of the mania for these forensics is fueled by Patricia Cornwell's books.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Cornwell
Now, to add just a tiny bit to reality here to this. I got to meet the coroner of El Paso County, Texas and mentioned that I had read Patricia Cornwell. She was on her way to the airport to return to El Paso, but stopped and said that Ms. Cornwell is well thought of and has brought a lot of good publicity and knowledge about her profession to the general public.
@burrito88 (2774)
• United States
21 Apr 13
I haven't read either of those authors. The one female author that I was reading was Sara Paretsky whose hero is a female private eye that often has trouble playing rough with the boys.
@Fishmomma (11377)
• United States
12 Apr 13
I love Quincy it was one of my don't miss shows and have seen every episode many times. Jack Klugman was an actor that I would watch on many shows and movies. I'm one of the people that really likes the older shows more than many of the newer ones.
I do like NCIS and watch it on the USA Network often. Its the network with lots of marathons of the show.
@burrito88 (2774)
• United States
21 Apr 13
It was actually a USA NCIS marathon that got me started watching the show. That and House.
And Quincy is on my list of shows to watch on Netflix except that I am currently using a free one month on Amazon prime to try to watch Farscape, which I missed the first time around.
@stealthy (8181)
• United States
12 Apr 13
I like Bones. Her character and her flaws draw from her abandonment issues when she was a child and the purely analytical outlook she adopted as a defense mechanism. Her character has grown and improved a lot over the course of the show. Her partner FBI agent Booth(Booth not Brennan, Brennan is the name of Bones) is much more a people person who hides his intellect to his advantage. On Hawaii Five has Max as a bit of an eccentric and I tend to like him also. I only watched one episode of Body of Proof and, although I like some of the actors on it, there was such a huge flaw in logic on the part of the main character in that one episode that I haven't watched it since.
@burrito88 (2774)
• United States
12 Apr 13
I did not see Bones from the beginning so I don't know of Brennan's background. Booth is more of a people person but he comes off as very brash compared to Brennan's reserve. With Five O I haven't seen that many episodes. I know I was a bit put off by the show taking Kono and switching the character's gender. I'm not Hawaiian so I don't know if Kono is a male or female name. I do remember Max drawing conclusions at the scene which strikes me as improper procedure. For example, Ducky, on NCIS will make a preliminary analysis but he always points out that he needs to re-examine the body in the lab.
@bunnybon7 (50973)
• Holiday, Florida
21 Apr 13
funny thing is i watch NCIS just to watch Abby. i think most of the rest are pretty boring people! As far as Bones, i love it and all the characters in it.! i hate waiting for the next episode and btw, they have improved both the characters Brennen and Booth by pairing them up in a relationship that causes them to complement each other. they even have a baby together.
@lelin1123 (15595)
• Puerto Rico
12 Apr 13
I love Quincy back in the day with Jack Klugman. In later years I liked CSI shows and NCIS. Now my favorite is Body of Proof. I have been watching it from the beginning and I just love the characters and how they solve the deaths and or murders every week. The interaction between the forensic staff and the detectives is so funny at times. I have never watched Bones because it interfere with something else I watch.
@burrito88 (2774)
• United States
12 Apr 13
Quincy is on my list of TV shows to watch over again on Netflix. Although I like the show, I do want to watch out for the science a bit more than I did earlier. As I recall Quincy did most of his analyses with an HPLC and there are some things you can't run that way.
I know it may be picky but I sometimes look for errors in TV shows. Many moons ago I used to watch the original Battlestar Galactica to spot the mistakes there. There used to be so many, like showing flames from a fire outside the ship (fire in a vacuum?) then exposing part of the inside of the ship to stop the fire while at the same time exposing crew members also to the vacuum of space without wearing space suits.
@marguicha (222994)
• Chile
12 Apr 13
I love NCIS and I love each of the characters. Abby Sciutto could not be as she is if she wasn´t with the other characters.All the other characters help her show what she really is. How can anyone be a hugger if she has noone to hug? Although I am not for tatoos, I confess that I find the spider´s web in her neck very delicate. I wonder if they are real.
@marguicha (222994)
• Chile
13 Apr 13
I agree with you about the character: she`s Abby. And as I`m a hugger myself, I would never consider a hug as a way of harassing
@Sherryrob1 (126)
• United States
12 Apr 13
Right now I think my favorite is forensic scientist is Dana Delaney on Body of Proof. She's classy and clever and really fun to watch. I love to watch her on the crime scenes as well as interacting with the other characters.