Latest C.S.I. stretches truth like Laffy Taffy...

I love the show C.S.I. Ever since the first season when we were introduced to our favorite characters like bug-loving Grissom, ex-stripper Willows, man-hater Sara, gambler Warrick and womanizer Stokes, I liked the show for it's mini-mysteries that only science and forensics can solve. Oh sure, the lighting was brighter back then and their equipment budget now makes room for huge full-wall HDTV screens, but it's still a pretty good show.

Bill and I wrote a piece a while ago called, "You can learn a lot from life from watching C.S.I." in which we detailed things like cheating on your lover will increase your chances of dying, being into freaky fetishes increases that chance and others.

We also included this line, "Apparently, it's possible take a fuzzy, grainy surveillance video and then enlarge certain sections with not only no loss of clarity, but a huge increase of clarity!"

This episode, they take that assumption to new and ridiculous heights.

The episode, "Kiss Kiss, Bye Bye" involves a murder at the party thrown by a wealthy ex-showgirl played by Faye Dunaway. By the way, Faye looks like she's had some work done. From the chipmunk like cheeks when she smiled, to the insanely big and bright choppers in her mouth, to the big, fake breast implants, it was a little hard to see when the old Faye started and the new Faye ended. This was not the Faye Dunaway that I remember from Barfly. This just wasn't a make-up job.

That aside, Faye did a great job portraying a Vegas socialite that lived to be beautiful and had just published her tell all book.

The night begins with a dead body discovered in her bedroom. They find Faye's character in the bedroom vault scared to death that she was going to be shot.

Through their investigation, the team examines the security camera footage. One camera's footage show the murder victim being dropped off by a car near the garage. They of course bring a close-up on the license plate and put it in the state database. They find a match. That is not so unbelievable.

The victim is then handed a slip of paper. The team blows it up enough to not only see the small printing on what looks to be an airplane flight ticket, but they pull the bar code from the ticket and decode that as well! This in turn, tells them that the victim was going to fly somewhere that night.

Now it's one thing to take grainy security footage and get crystal clear face images and license plates, but it's another thing to be able to read the bar code on a plane ticket that someone was holding!

Even my wife had to blurt out, "Oh come on! Do you know how pixelized that would be!"

She ought to know. At her job, she had to capture some stills from television footage that was of someone with their head to their waist in the frame. Even those looked really pixelated!

I swear that Hollywood just can't help themselves. Be it from the political lectures you hear 38 minutes after the hour on Boston Legal or the stretching of science on C.S.I.

That reminds me.

In early episodes of C.S.I., they relied on a lot of pretty obvious science to find out who the killer was. They use liminol to turn blood stains blue in almost every episode. Likewise, they used to use GSR tests, gun shot residue, to rule out or implicate suspects as people who may or may not have pulled the trigger.

In this past episode, there are multiple suspects to this murder. Not one of them were tested for gun shot residue! And just when they still had no suspects and were baffled, they then decide to test the socialite's closes for GSR! Of course, the clothes are missing from the huge closet of party dresses, but they do find the ring she was wearing that night. That does have GSR.

I swear this team makes is harder on themselves. From examining crime scenes with flashlights instead of turning on the lights to not using the GSR test anymore, the CSI team isn't getting any pity from me when they complain.