TV is the New Reading

TV magic vs. science, Pt. 1

Pop culture is so inextricably infused with science at this point it’s difficult to judge what constitutes science fiction and what may be safely relied upon as solid scientific advances.

Aerosol sprays that cause trace organic material to luminesce under a blue light must be science fact because they’re so pervasive. Electrostatic Mylar that brings up a footprint — and nothing else — from carpeting at a crime scene seems ... a bit iffier.

But everything is “forensic” nowadays if a storyline calls for it – everything from forensic accountants on “Desperate Housewives” to forensic anthropologists in “Bones.” Their findings would seem a little more likely, say, if the forensic artist hadn’t created a forensic 3-D holographic imaging device that can detail everything from facial reconstruction to a virtual tour of the Louvre in virtually the same amount of time.

Even my personal favorite detective fiction format – profiler cases – seems to employ Ockham’s Razor to an unlikely degree – that is, the likeliest solution is generally the correct one. Within moments of stepping onto a crime scene, the forensic profilers of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit can issue a press statement describing the serial killer they’re looking for and they’re always, always, always right.

This stands in sharp contrast to the forensic investigators of “Without a Trace” who often have no idea what’s actually happened until the waning moments of the critical first 48 hours – but in those nail-biting moments, they do all-but-inevitably track down the missing people.

Magic

As Arthur C. Clarke has suggested, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. These forensic types seem to have as much magic at their disposal as Harry Dresden of “The Dresden Files” – who, to be fair, is actually a wizard.

And when science isn’t enough, Jennifer Love Hewitt of “Ghost Whisperer” and Patricia Arquette of “Medium” are ready to take up the slack by actually communicating with the dead in the emerging television field of forensic necromancy.

The reason it might be of interest to hold television story-telling to more rigorous science goes back to what might be considered the birth of the crime procedural – Jack Webb’s Sgt. Joe Friday and his “Just the facts, ma’am” approach in “Dragnet.” Part of what made this such compelling television was the tagline: “The story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.”

In an era where viewers seem to prefer their cases to progress from gunfire to verdict in an hour, certain liberties are excused and shortcuts are accepted. New compelling evidence turns up or a reluctant eyewitness finally comes forward in the last 10 minutes to wrap things up.

So never mind magic or inconvenient realism or last-minute deus ex machina. Cases mainly turn on the skills of the writers involved.

To the extent that they know what they’re talking about, that’s at least part of what determines how good the show is. As for how good the science is, check out my column in Saturday’s TVWEEK for a review of pop physicist Jennifer Ouellette’s engagingly accessible “The Physics of the Buffyverse.”

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

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