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  • Aluminum Christmas Trees: Some of the fetishes featured in the plots of some episodes seem so out there many viewers just assume they are something made up for the show. In fact, most if not all of them are completely real.
  • And You Thought It Would Fail: ABC turned the series down with the excuse of it being "Too confusing for the average viewer". Of course, it became a smash hit for CBS and the start of the Forensic Drama genre. note 
  • Anvilicious:
    • The episode that centered around Internet bullying gets a bit egregious when Nick basically tries to say anyone who ever looked at the mocking videos, even if they did nothing about it or thought it was in bad taste, deserved to be put into the court system.
  • Base-Breaking Character:
    • Sara is either one of the most compelling and woobieish characters on the show, or just plain crass and annoying.
    • Ray Langston...either he was a great character or Creator's Pet and really overused and given too much to do for a CSI 1.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Sqweegel, a serial murderer out to avenge unpunished crimes... while wearing a rubber gimp suit, walking in a four-limbed hunch, and practically spitting his lines out. Despite hints he would return after escaping the cops, he was never spoken of again.note 
    • Apparently subverted as The final scene of season 1 of the revival reveals he's coming back.
  • Bile Fascination: Not the show itself but any member of the Furry Fandom could watch "Fur and Loathing" to see how badly it is due to its poor image towards this fandom. Its reputation is so infamous that if you google "That Episode", it is the first entry that comes up.
  • Complete Monster: See here.
  • Designated Hero: While being scientists, the CSI team are less violent than the protagonists of other crime shows such as Law & Order: Special Victims Unit or The Shield, they have the occasional moment of acting like this. Standout episodes include "Killer," where they blackmail the eponymous Consummate Professional murderer into surrendering, after he's run circles around them all episode, by threatening to arrest his Guilt-Ridden Accomplice wife instead and put their adorable daughter into the foster care system, and "In A Dark, Dark House," in which the entire team deliberately falsifies evidence to protect Ray Langston after his vengeful murder of the Big Bad.
  • Diagnosed by the Audience: Gil displays the combination of extremely high intelligence and extremely low social skills that is stereotypically associated with Asperger's syndrome and other forms of high-functioning autism, but nothing is ever stated for certain.

  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Greg and Hodges in earlier seasons; when they were promoted to main characters the other lab rats got the same treatment, with Archie and Mandy in particular being well loved by the fans.
    • Sqweegel, the one-off Vigilante and Serial Killer from the episode of the same name, is one of the show's most popular and memorable villains, despite that being his only appearance. His interesting MO of hunting people whose hero status in their communities he viewed as hypocritical in relation to their misdeeds, his dark and creepy latex full-body suit and his knack for leaving no evidence behind, as well as for escaping without repercussions, led to him being considered one of the show's greatest and most unique villains. It's to the point where fans lamented he didn't appear after this.
  • Esoteric Happy Ending: "Ch-ch-ch-changes," the 100th episode, becomes this once the viewer remembers that the villains had an adorable little daughter who knew nothing of her parents' misdeeds and is now completely alone in the world, since even her nanny (who was also her surrogate mom since her mother is transgender and can't have children) was arrested for helping the couple cover up their crimes.
  • The Firefly Effect: Character example. Sofia Curtis, played by Louise Lombard. She was hardly developed, and only really had one episode focus on her (the episode "A Bullet Runs Through It"), but it seems the writers got bored with her. This resulted in Louise Lombard quitting the series, and moving back to England.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • An episode about a very troubled person shooting up the LVPD (three dead including the gunman, a teenager; additionally the person who manipulated him into shooting was arrested, at least a dozen wounded) aired the same day a very troubled person shoots up an army base (four dead including the gunman, over a dozen wounded).
    • "The Accused Is Entitled," which had an Expy of Johnny Depp being accused of murdering two women he had a one-night stand with and the cast being exasperated by the fact that his being a wealthy celebrity enables him to hire the best lawyers, scientists, etc. to help get him off. More than a decade later the real Depp would be accused of wife-beating, which along with other contemporary scandals related to Bill Cosby and Woody Allen among others has prompted serious discussion on the propensity of celebrities to get away with crimes.
    • The Final Boss of the series, in "Immortality," is a man who uses drugs to force his victims to commit suicide bombings along the Strip for him, sending Vegas into a state of panic. Two years later, the real Strip would see the deadliest mass murder in U.S. history, with nearly sixty people dead including the gunman - TEN TIMES more than the amount of people killed in the episode.
      • Even earlier than that, the Season 15 episode "Girls Gone Wilder" depicts a mass shooting inside a Strip hotel, which leaves nearly a dozen people dead. The last scene before the opening credits (the gunman, wielding an AR-15, watching over a crowd of people on a higher perch, prepared to take his first shot) makes this all the more uncomfortable.
    • In the Season 7 episode "Fannysmackin," Caucasian Greg kills a teenage African-American gang member to stop him from beating a (also white) man to death, which sparks a subplot running through the next several episodes where the department is sued for wrongful death by the boy's family, and it's strongly implied that the family believes race to have been a motive in the killing. Greg is ultimately cleared, but fast forward to The New '10s and police departments all over the country have been dogged by accusations of racially-motivated killings of minority suspects, with the departments covering for the perpetrators, and suddenly he doesn't look so sympathetic.
    • Two episodes from Season 15 — "Bad Blood", about a virus scare, and "Girls Gone Wilder" featuring a mass shooting — aired around the same time as Ebola scares in Dallas, Texas New York City and mass shootings in Ottawa and Washington state; coincidentally both episodes were preempted by long football games.
    • In the episode "Space Oddity", the Victim of the Week tries to pitch a Darker and Edgier remake of a Star Trek Expy that is so disliked by the convention goers that it nearly causes a riot. While the Star Trek franchise was not lacking in darker moments, by The New '20s it had expanded with a number of shows that had left the fans more divided with some thinking that maybe it had become too dark.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • Pauley Perrette shows up as a random criminal in the third season episode "Lady Heathers Box". Just a few months later, she would become a forensic scientist on a similar show. Even funnier, the character she plays here couldn't be less similar to Abby, being a drug addict who almost gets Lindsay killed and doesn't even care.
    • Season 8's "Two and a Half Deaths" was written by Chuck Lorre, and he based the character of arrogant, temperamental sitcom star Annabelle Fundt on his experiences working with Roseanne Barr on her eponymous sitcom. The role of Annabelle was played by Katey Sagal, at the time best known as Peg Bundy on Married... with Children (a role originally offered to Roseanne). A decade later, Roseanne was revived to great acclaim, but a scandal involving Roseanne Barr led to her dismissal and to the series being re-tooled as The Conners, with Roseanne's now-widowed husband Dan finding new love with his old flame Louise, played by... Katey Sagal.
  • Ho Yay: Nick and Greg. In fact, such a pairing has a large following, especially due to the subtext that occurs in their interactions.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Kelly from "Grave Danger," as she's being treated horribly in prison and it's strongly implied she didn't even commit the crime she's in jail for.
  • Just Here for Godzilla: Many people tuned in to see the season 11 episode "Targets of Obsession" just to watch Justin Bieber's character get shot to death.
  • Magnificent Bastard: See here.
  • Memetic Mutation:
  • Misaimed Merchandising: The kids' science sets, even though the age range is tweens and teens, probably counts. Also the Club CSI chapter books.
  • Narm: The particular fetish of the dead Casino owner in the episode King Baby took an otherwise serious murder plot and brought a level of disbelief to viewers who took to the internet to see if it was, in fact, a real fetish.
  • Narm Charm: Happens to a lot of characters played by comedians who are allowed to improvise some dialogue, such as Wayne Knight's character, a sleazy office manager that is pretty much Newman/Dennis Nedry if they ran a casino support office.
  • Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: Happens a lot with regards to guest stars. One episode of the final season had Greg Grunberg pop in for a brief role. Turns out it wasn't as small or brief as previously thought.
  • Padding: The video games REALLY make you work to match fingerprints, DNA, and chemical samples.
  • Replacement Scrappy: Riley Adams replaced Sara Sidle for one season and was not well received by the audience, and fans even petitioned the producers to bring Jorja Fox back. As a result, Riley was written off in the next season and Sidle was brought back.
  • Retroactive Recognition: A lot of secondary guest stars eventually found fame after their appearance on CSI. Rainn Wilson and John Krasinski both had guest spots before their own hit show, with Wilson having a memorable bit in one of the more popular episodes ("The Strip Strangler") as a possible suspect. And CSI: NY 's Carmine Giovinazzo was a guest star on here before becoming a regular on the spinoff series. But, Word of God says the guest appearance wasn't an influence in casting him. A.J. Buckley, also from CSI: NY, appeared on this show before becoming a regular on the spinoff as well.
    • Norm was the killer (sort of) in "Dog Eat Dog." The best example, however, is Eric Stonestreet as Ronnie Litra, the lab's questioned documents expert, who disappeared without explanation around the middle of Season 4... and is now quite famous as Cameron Tucker.
    • A year after playing a small guest role as a robbery witness in “Paper or Plastic?”, T.J. Thyne went on to land a regular role on another forensics series, Bones.
    • Josh Holloway appeared in an episode as a character getting questioned by Catherine, a year before landing the role of Sawyer on Lost. Notably, he and Catherine's actress Marg Helgenberger would reunite in 2014 in the short-lived series Intelligence.
    • One of Corey Stoll's earliest acting jobs was as a snarky sex shop clerk in Season 5's "What's Eating Gilbert Grissom?"
    • Ian Anthony Dale played three different characters across the three series, before hitting it big as Adam Noshimuri in Hawaii Five-0.
    • Both Ian Somerhalder and Kat Graham appeared on the show before becoming co-stars in The Vampire Diaries. Somerhalder was in "Revenge Is Best Served Cold" and Graham was in "Poppin' Tags".
    • Aaron Paul has an appearance as a store owner's son in Season 2, episode 17 (Felonious Monk), way before he would become Jesse Pinkman on Breaking Bad.
    • Years before Nathan Kress turns up in Season 19's "Neverland", his ICarly co-star Jennette McCurdy turns up in Season 2's "Cats in the Cradle..." she's the killer's little sister.
  • Seasonal Rot: The first few seasons received much more acclaim than the later ones. To be fair it's hard to avoid going stale when you have to keep making episodes for 15 years and the show is locked into a rather strict formula. One could make a case with show growing stale as early as Seasons 6/7, but it was likely Grissom's departure in Season 9 that really accelerated things.
  • The Scrappy: Jason McCann, a teenage Right-Wing Militia Fanatic and Mad Bomber, mostly due to his being played by notoriously polarizing pop singer Justin Bieber. Not only was this regarded as one of the most blatant instances of celebrity stunt casting in a good while, there was a general consensus that Bieber, who had built his career on the image of a squeaky-clean teen heartthrob, was completely unable to sell the role of a threatening villain. There was much rejoicing when he was riddled with bullet holes in his second appearance.
  • Special Effect Failure: In shooting flight scenes, the planes used are mostly CGI rather than real planes, and often they stick out like sore thumbs.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Marg Helgenberger as Catherine returns for a guest appearance in Season 14. Unfortunately the producers chose to make the episode a flashback set during Season 1, meaning zero follow-ups about Catherine's new career at the FBI. And they didn't even bother to give her the short hair in her older appearances. Thankfully, she was brought back in present day for the Grand Finale "Immortality".
    • The final scene of CSI: Vegas's first season could have easily been used to set up the return of the serial killer Sqweegel, who hasn't been seen since Season 11 of the mothership series. Instead, we get a brand new killer.
  • Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Since the show is set in "Sin City," the victims and killers are frequently just as evil as each other. For example, the secondary crime in the very first episode featured a man who killed his slovenly, drug-addicted cousin who had been mooching off him for three years. Can you truly say anyone is in the right in a situation like that?
  • Unintentional Period Piece: The episode "Strip Maul" mentioned 3D printers being the future, and that one unit costs around $150,000. Of course the episode was made in 2012, and 3D printers are cheaper and more popular by the late 2010's.
    • The pilot mentions Greg Sanders playing NFL2K on the Sega Dreamcast. The Dreamcast was discontinued the next year in 2001, while the NFL2K series was discontinued a few years later in 2005.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The episode "Coup de Grace" involves an officer accidentally killing another in the midst of duty. After the shooting officer kills himself, an autopsy discovers that he suffers from retinitis pigmentosa which forced him to view the world in severe tunnel vision. Langston concludes that there might not be a bad guy in this, but the shooting officer's refusal to retire due to pride arguably makes him less sympathetic, especially considering that his disability severely impacted his job performance, which is no joke since it involves shooting firearms.

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