Misrepresentation

Posted on by PaulaO

First, I am not a rabid fan who knows every detail of every character of these shows. I only know the real name of one of the actors, actually. So for me to bitch about the shows, it will mean it bothered me enough to cause me to step into the realm of fandom.

Lorna and I have watched CSI for many years. We love the show. This is the original, the one in Las Vegas. We’ve always liked it for it’s complicated plot lines, the intelligent writing and the development of the characters. We’ve also followed Cold Case from its beginning, for most of the same reasons.

But the writers lately for both have made some major errors.

The first was for Cold Case when a murderer is said to be dying from Multiple Sclerosis. First, off, MS is not necessarily fatal. Second, the symptoms the man were displaying was far from the brink of death.

The man allegedly killed a 16 yr old boy about 20 yrs prior. He comes to the station and confesses to the murder. In discussing it with him, which of course is him being full of riddles, they discover he has grabbed another boy off the street and buried him alive in a box underground, the same way the other boy died. They go talk to the murderer’s ex-wife and that is where they learn he is “dying from MS”. When he killed the first boy, it was when he was first diagnosed. That many years ago, MS was still considered potentially fatal. Shortly after the murder, he went into remission, also quite common. Now he has shaking hands and believes he is dying for real this time.

Now, at this point, the writers of the show were within bounds. It is very plausible that the man would still believe that what was true 20-something years ago still is true. But they crossed the line of plausibility by having the police officers believe it too. This is when I start really ranting at the television. I was waiting for Lillie Rush to lean over and say “Guess what, moron? You ain’t dyin’ from MS but you will be dying in the chair.” Nope. Didn’t happen.

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The other one was last night on CSI. First, the show was awful. It danced around and never really seemed to come together. It was as if they took a two hour show and crammed it into one, leaving out important details in the process. As a viewer, I kept thinking it would come together at the end. It didn’t.

But their big error again was medical. Three kids are killed and in the process of finding their killers, they go to the home of this one guy. They find him hiding in the closet, a wound on his calf, and looking like he’s having a seizure. Flip forward to where they are with him at the hospital. Doctor says he has tetanus. By the time symptoms such as his to that degree manifest, there is no cure. Dying from tetanus is a probably one of the worst ways to die.

Problem is, symptoms like that don’t show up for a MININMUM of three days. It’s been less than 24hrs. He got the bacteria from a staple shot from a hand stapler by one of the victims. This isn’t a staple shot from a pneumatic stapler. It’s the usual grip one used to put up posters and insulation. The staples are not old, they are not pitted in rust where the bacteria can hide. The staple hits him in the calf and from the looks of the other staples they were pulling out from the poles, it was no longer than 1/2″ deep.

Now, if they’d left it there, perhaps it would be a “Let this be a lesson to you!” kind of thing. Nope, they go and dig the hole deeper. The doctor says the killer will get a series of antibiotics and implies he will be fine in a few days. WRONG! Antibiotics will help with the infection and some of the symptoms. But it won’t get rid of the tetanus nematodes. It will be several weeks before he will know for sure if he will live after several layers of different treatments.

What they’ve done is given folks a reason to forget to get their tetanus shots every 5-10 yrs. Why should they? CSI folks just said antibiotics will make it go away even after symptoms have started so bad they guy’s jaw is locked.

And yeah, I was yelling at the television again.

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