The trivia section of the Internet Movie Database's listing for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation credits the show for a significant increase in applications for courses in forensic science. That's a pretty significant statement of the show's popularity.

In my mind, telelvision has very little to offer in terms of quality fiction, but once in a while something comes along that really stands out, that proves television can achieve excellence. Such is the case with CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

The focus of the show is around a team of criminalists who work the graveyard shift of the Las Vegas Police's forensic department. These are the guys who arrive on the scene of a crime and collect the evidence. They aren't out pounding on doors and shaking down witnesses. Instead, they rely on the smoking gun of evidence to point the fingers. As the team's boss, Gil Grissom (William Petersen), is fond of saying, the evidence never lies.

The genius of the show is that it manages to create drama, tension and action in untraditional ways. Instead of watching cops have a shootout with the bad guys, we find ourselves hanging on the edge of our seats awaiting the results of a DNA scan. The crimes are puzzles and the trick is in finding all of the pieces and fitting them together.

CSI is a fun show to watch because it engages the audience. We aren't simply watching events unfold. Instead, we "find" the evidence along with the investigators, allowing us the opportunity to try to figure out the crimes as the team does. There is a definite progression along the chain of evidence so that the show rarely, if ever cheats. There are no final act revelations that aren't directly linked to the evidence we've been presented.

If there are any faults to be found with the show it's that almost every crime is nicely wrapped up within each episode's 45 minute runtime. The investigators always seem more perplexed by the puzzles of the crimes, rather than flat out stumped. Crimes that, by all rights, should take days or weeks to solve are wraped up overnight and the team has very few unsolved cases. While this hasn't been detrimental to the show thus far, I for one would like to see more season-long story arcs in the future.

Season one of CSI came out of the gate determined to do something different on television. The Pilot episode introduced us to the character of Holly Gribbs (Chandra West), a new CSI recruit. Gribbs offered the opportunity for the audience to learn along side her, familiarizing us with the world of the criminalist. A less bold show might have kept the point of view of Holly Gribbs throughout the run of the season. CSI shoots her in the first episode and kills her in the second, communicating to the audience that this was a show to shake things up.

The main character of the show is the team's boss, Gil Grissom, a role that William Petersen was born to play. Petersen has long been one of my favorite "everyman" actors. He conveys an intelligence on screen that few other actors can match, but at the same time, he seems capable of a toughness you just don't want to mess with.

The remaining investigators, Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger), Nick Stokes (George Eads), Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox) and Warrick Brown (Gary Dourdan), offer up an array of varied personality traits that keeps the character interaction interesting. Perhaps the only stumbling ground here was a plot thread introduced early in the season that involved Warrick Brown's gambling habit getting him in trouble with a judge. This bit seemed contrived and was thankfully abandonded early. I'm all for a gambling addiction character flaw in Brown, but the whole blackmail aspect was overdone.

Many of the story inspirations for the first season were lifted directly from real cases, so if some of the plots seem familiar, this is why. The real-life aspect lends credibility to the cases that makes up for the rushed feeling to the case resolutions and the occasional slight missteps with the science.

Unlike some shows, that take a season or two to really find their stride, CSI came out strong and a few of the first season episodes are still some of the best the show has yet produced. Of note is an episode featuring a quadruple murder. The episode is called Blood Drops and is very reminiscent of William Petersen's stellar performance in Manhunter (the lesser known, but still superior film version of the Thomas Harris book Red Dragon).

CSI is a fantastic show that, suprisingly, has quite a bit of replay value.