“CSI: New York” is the third of the CSI franchise. It is like the others where the forensics people are the feature instead of the criminal investigation. Like Miami, the CSI’s are real police officers. Instead of Billy Peterson playing Gil Grissom, or David Caruso as Horatio Cain, they have Gary Sinise playing Mac Taylor! Isn’t that different?

To make sure it wouldn’t beat the other CSI shows in the ratings, they put it on the same time as Law & Order! Pretty clever. A New York based cop show that has been on for 15 years and has loyal die hard following. Sounds like sure death, but apparently enough people have Tivo and VCR that they manage to pull enough viewers to keep on the air.

CHiPs was a cool show. It was based on the California Highway Patrol motorcycle patrol. Eric Estrada and Larry Wilcox were the stars. I don’t think they understood the concept of ensemble casts then. The entire cast was really great. If this show was made by Dick Wolf it would still be on the air. When Estrada demanded half the show’s budget, he would have been sent packing. Bruce Jenner could have been kept on and the show would have been great.

Survivor is a great show, because they juggle the rules all the time. Once there was a boy named Silas, who thought he had the game wrapped up, but Mr. Burnett introduced the tribe shuffling. In a later season, when Shi-Ann thought they had merged and started dishing the dirt on her former tribe, she found the tribes were still separated but on the same beach.

All sorts and types of people have won and it is always exciting.

No one knows for sure what the deal with the island is. There is a monster and there are noises in the woods. I always like a show that is willing to kill off regulars. Another cool thing is that they have an international cast. It’s popular for Australian, Canadian and British actors to pretend to be Americans on US television. It’s nice to here the beauteous Emilie de Ravin speaking her normal accent for a change.

Some folks who are dead, help people pass over. If someone has a particularly nasty and painful death these “reaper” folk will remove the person’s soul. Ellen Muth stars as George who got his by a toilet seat falling from the sky. An excellent cast including Mandy Patinkin, Laura Harris and Callum Blue really make for an enjoyable viewing experience.

Some of the death scenarios are really funny. In season one George doesn’t want to reap and in season two she gets quite good at it. Season three would have really brought everything together, but they cancelled the show after two seasons. What can you do?