That's not New York, C.S.I.

A few years ago, C.S.I., the original Las Vegas, began being shown on Israel's channel one. We became great fans of it. Not only for our viewing pleasure, but the plots and pictures were frequently "clean" enough for me to show to my students. There was an advantage to them, since they weren't too long, and I could deal with all the literature stuff, like plot, character, setting, conflict, suspense, etc.

Then we began seeing the Miami one. Not as good, and certainly nothing that could be brought to the classroom. Those teenage boys I teach would love it, but I'd be fired for sure. Not only the immodestly dressed (or undressed) females, but the plots usually involve things I'm not supposed to be teaching them the vocabulary for.

Even worse, the Las Vegas plots began going in the same direction. Or more accurately, they seemed rather interchangeable, like they were written for "CSI," and only later was it decided which city.

But we kept watching, since there isn't much else on the one channel we receive. Then they added the "New York" C.S.I. I added those quotation marks, because trust me! That's not New York!!!

I was born and raised in New York and I visit periodically, OK three times in the past year; though that frequently is rare. If I say "that's not New York" you can trust me. There are TV shows which portray NY, like the "Law and Order" series, all of them. People look and sound like they're in NY. The energy is NY. They don't need phony tourist shots to pretend it's NY.

In one of the first CSI "NY" episodes they showed a view of the Empire State Building, lit up and backed by a starry sky. My son caught it and said: "There's too much light in NY even at night to see stars like that." He's right, of course, and not because he's my son.

We're not on the "front line" of TV here, so I don't know if the show is still rolling, or it was hooked off, like the old vaudeville days.

Maybe the awful plots, direction, cinematography etc wouldn't bother me so much if the locale was Seattle or Detroit, far from the east coast. I hope you'll tell me that the show is finished with. Or maybe someone can guess which city it should be in.

Waiting...