CSI:NY Makes Canadian History

It appears that some folks in Canada believe that episodes of CSI:NY are considered historical in nature. I’m not talking about last season’s repeats either.

There’s a TV station in Canada called “History Channel” that’s now televising episodes of CBS’ CSI:NY as part of their regular line-up.  Alas, to the dismay of CSI fans everywhere, they’re getting in trouble for it. For good reason though, I wouldn’t consider CSI:NY historical in nature, but their argument below makes sense on how they thought about their reasoning behind their decision.

In the current season, however, the history channel has gone one step too far from its original mandate. It began carrying “CSI: New York,” the sensationally successful CBS cop show in which the police catch the criminals by science rather than by old-fashioned sleuthing. (CSI stands for “Crime Scene Investigation.”)

This was too much for Maureen Parker, executive director of the Writers Guild of Canada, who squawked to the CRTC that “CSI: New York” is so far removed from history as to be absurd. In response, the CRTC sent what was described as a “blistering letter” to Alliance Atlantis, owners of the History Channel, in effect telling them to get “CSI: New York” off their program list, pronto.

Atlantis’ response renders its case more absurd than ever. The show, it claims, “offers viewers a critically acclaimed look at forensic policing in post 9-11 New York City” – which would be like describing the old cop show, “Streets of San Francisco,” as historically significant because there was once a big earthquake in that town, or justifying as “history” some current Italian sex comedy on the grounds that it happens in Rome, where Julius Caesar used to live.

I doubt that’s going to fly with the regulators though. I’m sure Canada has some other channels that have CSI in syndication, so hopefully our neighbors to the north won’t be going through CSI withdrawal in the near future. 

For any high schoolers out there, don’t think this will now count as credit for your report due this week in history class.

Article Source: Is ‘CSI: New York’ really ‘history’?