S01.E10: Click Your Poison

[ottoDbusdriver]

Episode Description:

 

A man passes away after taking medication that he had bought through a hacked advert on a website on line.

 

[ottoDbusdriver]

It would be hilarious if the victim bought fake Enzyte.  </snark>

[ottoDbusdriver]

Malvertisement will kill you and everyone you love.

 

Seriously, 14 minutes in and we finally get the intro title sequence.  Why even bother at that point ?

 

Why would the widow of the victim, who admits that they are short on cash, fly all the way from Cleveland to Washington probably on her own dime because she found out that the Cyber team was handling her husband's case ?  To do what exactly ?  Shouldn't she be home with funeral preparations and be a lot more upset since not only is her husband dead she's responsible for buying the drugs that killed him ?

 

Isn't oxycodone expensive, so why would the perp be including it in the fake meds ?  Use something cheaper like codeine since oxy would cut into your profit margins.

 

The Cave is back for another virtual autopsy.  Did they stick the widow with the bill for the MRI that would be required to get that level of detail of the body ?

 

That filtered search by Krummie and Bow Wow to find the postage meter was just ridiculously stupid -- even for this show.

 

Did Avery and Mundo drive to San Antonio complete with the CyberSUV with the workstation in the back -- or is that standard equipment now for all FBI SUVs ?

 

Why didn't Avery use her super-duper powers of observation on Paul, the guy mailing out the meds ? 

 

I'm sorry, but there's no way ALL cars have Bluetooth-enabled tire pressure monitoring.  That's just bullshit.  Sure, it's a thing that does exist, but it's expensive for the ordinary person and certainly not part of the standard package on vehicles.

 

And I'm pretty sure that using gov't resources to conduct a denial-of-service attack against a commercial website just because you aren't getting your way with the company to cooperate is against the law.

 

That lab in the barn was just nasty.  I'm surprised people buying the fake drugs weren't coming down with distemper or hoof and mouth disease.  </snark>

 

So once the team figures out the perp is using an on-line poker web site to launder his money, they get full admin access to the on-line poker site -- in what universe ?  Most on-line poker web sites are hosted off-shore beyond the reach of US jurisdictions, so how did they get full access ?  That entire scene watching the multitude of on-line poker tables (so nice to see that Bow Wow can count the number of tables on the screen) as the funds were being transferred was ridiculous.  But not as ridiculous as the inclusion of the 3-D faceless avatars pushing the virtual poker chips all-in.  That was terrible.

 

We've tracked down the bank the perp is using in Lexington, Kentucky, but since it is after banking hours they will catch him at the bank when it opens in the morning -- are they unaware of how electronic banking works ? The perp basically pulled an Andy Dufresne -- was he also heading out with his cashier's check to Zihuatanejo to retire and work on his boat ?  Since they never interrogated the perp we never found out what his motivations were -- other than money.  Did he have an axe to grind with Big Pharma ?

 

Is Raven dead in a ditch somewhere and nobody noticed ?  She's been missing for several episodes now and no one seems to notice let alone care that she is missing.  And who are all these nameless extras in the background high-fiving team successes ?

 

After all the family drama early in the series, Mundo seems to have finally remembered that he has a daughter.

Edited May 8, 2015 by ottoDbusdriver

[shapeshifter]

My vote for worst of the episode:

The half dozen or more extras sitting around while Krummy works the poker game. Their faces showed the audience when it was time to be sad, worried, or delirious with joy--but otherwise, why were they even in the room?

[henripootel]

That filtered search by Krummie and Bow Wow to find the postage meter was just ridiculously stupid -- even for this show.

Agreed - if they can search for certain package with a certain weight at a certain time, why start by eliminating big corporations cuz 'nobody in the mail room there needs the money'?  Why not go straight to the details about the actual package?

but since it is after banking hours they will catch him at the bank when it opens in the morning -- are they unaware of how electronic banking works ?

 

Don't be silly, Otto - they tracked the money into the bank so they know they about wire transfers.  But nobody transfers money out of a bank - that takes walking in the front door with a big bag.  Cuz ... Cyber.  This one is my favorite for 'stupidest thing in the episode', followed closely by -

The half dozen or more extras sitting around while Krummy works the poker game.

A particularly stupid example of what this show does all the time: this is a national agency that works one case at a time.  Cuz there is only one case at a time, in the whole nation.  And when anybody has something to do, it's all hands on deck to ... watch, dramatically. And high-five after.  And it's a good thing the psychologist was there to give orders to the guys who actually know about computers.

 

Did anyone else follow Avery's 'profile' of the perp enough to see that she basically said 'Average height, average weight, average looking, average dress'?  Stupid as this is (I mean this is a made-up show, she can't pull more details out of her ass?), it is (I've read) pretty much on par for criminal profilers.  These guys may be stapes on tv now and give them their due, they do look at guys who actually commit crimes to see what they're usually like.  But their usual advice actually is 'average this, average that', and it's often unhelpful.  But like crime psychics, they often claim victory afterwards by pointing out that they did say that the perp might be living in his mother's basement and be 'average looking'.   Whoa, it's like they can see into their very souls ...

 

And I'm not a lawyer, me, so could somebody explain how issuing a warning about a security breach 'exposes a company to liability'?  CEO dude, your crappy security exposed you to liability, and it's not like talking to the poor widow is gonna wake her up to the possibility of suing your ass.  Knowing you have a breach and then doing nothing - that'll expose you to liability.

 

Not for nothing, but the guy at the beginning who got absolutely plowed by the truck - he wasn't exactly darting through traffic.  I know standing in the middle of the street isn't exactly safe but surely the trucker saw the guy from a mile away.  

Edited May 7, 2015 by henripootel

[Jamoche]

Isn't oxycodone expensive, so why would the perp be including it in the fake meds ? 

Apparently not with a prescription - I had some just last month, and a bottle of 60 was cheap enough that my friend who went to pick it up said "don't worry about it" when it turned out I'd given him an expired insurance card. (Yes, if they have the physical prescription form, anyone can pick up your oxycodone. Not that I'm complaining, I wasn't up to doing it.)

 

Out of curiosity I googled the street value - $20 a pill! So the perp is probably losing money if he's not selling it to people who want it.

 

Oh, seriously. Nobody's going to get TV airtime to talk about spoofed ads on webpages.

 

How did the people in the barn not notice the FBI breaking into the house?

 

Or maybe he's looking at the pills because they're more incriminating than the computer.

[iscoffy]

ScrollMD.  ScrollMD!  I am still not over Friend Agenda.  I'm hoping they do the dangers of Chirper next.

 

I get these people were desperate, but who doesn't try an independent Google search for the site and reviews of it before buying something with a credit card, especially something important like drugs?

 

But hey, we all got to whoop and high-five about saving lives.  Obnoxiously, as always.

[Raja]

Any reason the US Navy was involved?. I was expecting Gibbs and Abby to show up in a CBS version of a NBC mega crossover event.

[ottoDbusdriver]

Not for nothing, but the guy at the beginning who got absolutely plowed by the truck - he wasn't exactly darting through traffic.  I know standing in the middle of the street isn't exactly safe but surely the trucker saw the guy from a mile away.

 

I forgot about that  -- it wasn't even the fake meds that actually killed him, but the speeding pickup truck doing 60 mph in what was obviously an urban setting.  I was also thrown by the fact that when he was in the coffee shop he just ordered "a coffee" -- he didn't stipulate size or what kind of coffee or a litany of douchey coffee terms, yet the barista had it to him in seconds. And it looked like he didn't even pay for his coffee.  So basically, a dazed petty thief was hit by a speeding pickup truck, let's escalate this to the FBI's C-TAC division pronto.

 

And why was a navy doctor explaining the details of the case in The Cave to Avery -- because he was dressed in fatigues ?  Was this case also of interest to the military ? Last time I checked the FDA wasn't a branch of the military.

 

ETA: @Raja beat me to the odd inclusion about the navy doctor.

 

Did anyone else follow Avery's 'profile' of the perp enough to see that she basically said 'Average height, average weight, average looking, average dress'?  Stupid as this is (I mean this is a made-up show, she can't pull more details out of her ass?), it is (I've read) pretty much on par for criminal profilers.  These guys may be stapes on tv now and give them their due, they do look at guys who actually commit crimes to see what they're usually like.  But their usual advice actually is 'average this, average that', and it's often unhelpful.  But like crime psychics, they often claim victory afterwards by pointing out that they did say that the perp might be living in his mother's basement and be 'average looking'.   Whoa, it's like they can see into their very souls ...

 

Let's replace Avery Ryan with the Long Island Medium and see if anyone notices.  Also, Avery is a psychologist, but for some reason she has mad fighting skills because she elbowed the perp right in the face after he left the bank, not Mundo.  I can barely believe that she is trusted with a gun, let alone can deck a guy.  Didn't Avery say that the perp wore glasses to disguise himself in public, but they later showed him in front of a computer screen wearing those same obviously non-prescription glasses ?  WTF ?  Do the writers even pay attention to the bullshit they are making up earlier in the episode ?

 

That article on the ScrollMD.com web site "How Do You Hear Your Baby Cry ?" was one of the Hot Topics.  WTF ?

 

Even more interesting, the web page where the false ad was clicked on apparently had no URL in the address line after clicking on the ad -- wouldn't that be a dead give away that something was wrong and indicative that the web site wasn't the real web site ?  How stupid are these people -- do they also believe that a prince in Nigeria wants to share his money with them ?

 

Avery Ryan (after the virtual autopsy):" Carl Bruno's death wasn't an accident. It was homicide."

 

Technically, it was vehicular manslaughter because the driver was negligent and speeding, and never applied the brakes before hitting the victim -- because the pills didn't actually kill him, they just made him woozy and disoriented.  Did they charge the driver of the truck that hit him ?  Funny thing, according to the fake JPBPharmacy web site, the symptoms that Carl Bruno experienced before being killed were all side effects of the real Trazimor pills -- sweating, dizziness, headache.  So why were they suspicious of fake drugs if those were side effects of what was supposed to be a real prescription ?

 

And why would Carl Bruno have been carrying the entire bottle of pills if, per the label on the bottle, he only needed to take one pill a day.  He shouldn't have been mowing them down all day like Tic Tacs, so when they showed Carl Bruno taking two pills at once, he was basically overdosing on his meds which would have probably caused the known side effects of those pills anyway.

 

Agreed - if they can search for certain package with a certain weight at a certain time, why start by eliminating big corporations cuz 'nobody in the mail room there needs the money'?  Why not go straight to the details about the actual package?

 

Because no one in a large corporation has ever abused a postage meter before. </sarcasm>

 

The search criteria were too funny, besides the fact it literally said "Deep Web" in the search box, when they had to have had permission to search the postage meter info from several postage meter companies (so how is that the "Deep Web" exactly ?):

• Large corporations omitted
• Packages < 28.35 g omitted
• Packages = $1.82 : [Nov 10, 2014]
• Packages = 5.3 ounces

 

Why wouldn't they go straight to searching for postage meters with that exact date, weight and dollar amount ?  Because that means they would have finished in 2 seconds instead of padding out the scene for 5 minutes of bragging about how good they are and high-fiving.

 

Interesting how they tracked down the postage meter to that house by IP address, but when they found the postage meter in the house, there was no computer attached to it, and Paul did his poker site money transfers via his smartphone -- so how did they track the postage meter to Paul's house in the first place if it wasn't connected to a computer ?

 

I seriously doubt that they would have let that Paul guy wander into his bathroom alone so he could attempt suicide -- what if he was faking and had a gun in the bathroom ? Then Avery and Mundo would be dead and the show would be over (one could hope).

 

Is there really a database that correlates VIN number of vehicles with the bluetooth addresses of the tire pressure monitors on the vehicles ?  Because that seems like an incredible stretch.

 

When Mundo made that quarter million dollar pill purchase, he didn't fill out the postal code for calculation of delivery costs -- whoops !!  So where would the pills have been delivered ?  Wouldn't that set off a red flag to the perp ?

 

Whoever writes this stuff is pretty lazy.  Typical lines like Bow Wow when he sees that the on-line poker web site they are observing increases table count from two to four tables -- "Look, there's like four of them".  No, there was actually four of them, and did Bow Wow need to announce it like the rest of the people in the room couldn't count.

 

Here's a question -- last episode, Krummie gets his verbally wrist-slapped by Avery for breaking the law to find L0m1s (Krummie's white whale), but this episode Simon asks Bow Wow to commit a much bigger crime against a corporate web site and there's no issue at all.  Isn't Bow Wow still on probation so doing something like that, even if it was sanctioned, would get his ass tossed back in the slammer ?

 

Also, wouldn't infecting the firewall of the online poker company with a virus be against the law too ?  And did they remove it once they were finished ?

 

How did they figure out the perp's name ?  Even though they had the bank account number, his name never came up on the big displays.  And if they already knew his name, why wouldn't they have raided his home ASAP instead of waiting for the bank to open ?

 

At the end when Bow Wow said they saved lives by getting all those bad drugs off the streets and Krumitz said they stopped it before it became an epidemic, I'm pretty sure he doesn't know what the word 'epidemic' means, because it means a contagious disease.

Edited May 7, 2015 by ottoDbusdriver

[Jamoche]

OK, so the implausible TV interview with the widow had a caption about "bad ads on ScrollMD website" and later the website owners are talking about making sure their site is safe. But I was reading this Consumerist article about bad ad injection and the injection happens due to malware on the user's computer (usually because they've installed extensions - just what is so attractive about those toolbars that a "website toolbar overload" image search turns up screenshots of browsers that are 90% toolbar?) and the website with the legit ads is completely innocent in the whole thing.

 

 

Aha - I think I got it. It explains the way they track people by IP address - they think IP addresses are like phone numbers; once you're connected there's a direct link between your computer and whatever you're looking at.

[Kobo Duram]

Is it me or does James Van Der Beek's character unnecessarily rough up every suspect he comes in contact with?

 

Half the time they are detaining people who are being framed, or are unwitting participates to the crime, and he smacks these people around like they're murderers.

 

Acurate portrayal of a cop I guess...

[henripootel]

Is it me or does James Van Der Beek's character unnecessarily rough up every suspect he comes in contact with?

Be fair, Kobo - he didn't rough up the horrible baby kidnappers in the pilot!  He let them drown so he could watch Avery do CPR on a doll, cuz he cares too much.  Just not about his job, or scum.  Or people who might be scum, or have witnessed something scummy.  Open season on those assholes.

[ottoDbusdriver]

Is it me or does James Van Der Beek's character unnecessarily rough up every suspect he comes in contact with?

Half the time they are detaining people who are being framed, or are unwitting participates to the crime, and he smacks these people around like they're murderers.

Acurate portrayal of a cop I guess...

 

But he has also roughed up people who were completely innocent of any wrong-doing.  I guess Mundo has a beat-down first, ask questions later personal policy. For example, a few episodes ago when that girl was cyber-bullied by her high-school guidance counselor, Mundo outright assaulted an innocent guy in an interrogation room by slamming him into a wall.  And never apologized after they found out he was innocent -- how Mundo didn't end up with a police brutality charge I don't know ?

Edited May 7, 2015 by ottoDbusdriver

[thuganomics85]

The bizarre overuse of the background characters/extras really threw me for a loop.  There was one point where after their plan works, you actually see two of them giving each other a high-five, and I'm just like "Did you guys even DO anything to warrant that kind of back-slapping?"  Because it really feels like Krummy and Bow Wow (oh, and Raven when she isn't calling in sick apparently), are the only ones doing things.  I get there is only so much you can do with extras and screen time, but I rarely seem them actually working.  During the big scare, no seen to be typing or anything: just gapping at Krummy and Bow Wow working their magic.  I'm starting to think most of these guys are just slacking off and getting their easy government paychecks.

 

Malvertisement and Evil Video Poker!  Not bad, show!  You almost got the complete set of evil Internet stuff.

Is it me or does James Van Der Beek's character unnecessarily rough up every suspect he comes in contact with?
Half the time they are detaining people who are being framed, or are unwitting participates to the crime, and he smacks these people around like they're murderers.

Clearly Elijah Mundo must ascribe to the "there are no innocents, only some more guilty then others" theories, so therefore, everyone is deserves a smack.  Either that, or he's been looking into their history and every suspect was a Pacey fan, and Dawson ain't having none of that shit on his watch!

 

Favorite scene was Avery doing her big dramatic profiling bit, and it just ends up with him being nerdy with glasses, and Peter MacNicol is just like "That's it?!  All that droning on and nifty CGI, and all we figure out is he is every stereotype of a anti-social man ever?!"  I would actually like Peter's character, if all he did was just bitch everyone out for being lame.

 

Getting two episodes again next week, in bizarre time-slots.  Another one Tuesday at 10 p.m., but the finale on Wednesday will now be at 9 p.m.?  They really don't seem to have much confidence in this show.  I'm glad at least that it looks like we're getting a case based off of video games, but it's been ages since I haven't reminded how evil that is, and how playing shooters makes you a killer.  Sort of like how playing fantasy RPGs always makes me run off into the mountains and start shooting things with fireballs.  Good times!

[Kromm]

I discovered a brand new laughable aspect of the show I'd never noticed before.  Maybe this is the first time they've done it.  Maybe not.  But once I noticed it I found it SO ridiculously hilarious.
 
If you still have a recording of this (or maybe if it's on Hulu or CBS.com) go to the "game of Poker" scene that starts right about 30:00 exactly in (and goes on for about 10 minutes).  Watch the scene carefully.
 
What you may start to notice (as I did) are lots of SUPER-Drama-Face cut shots to bit players we've never been introduced to before.  I mean not the usual stuff where they're standing next to a cast member or walking in or out of frame (although a few of those are in there too), but FULL shots where other than our cast not actually ever TALKING to or looking at them... these people are totally reacting to the heavy over the top drama going on and are getting their own camera shots for that.  I just rewatched the scene and noticed at least a dozen of these shots.  They even clap and yell "we got it!" when the baddie responds to their poker lure. AND YET NONE OF THEM DO ANYTHING ELSE other than give Super-Drama-Face and clap/cheer.
 
I'd like it if there were actually other people in this world.  But it's hilarious how they've done this and totally unbelievable.  Since they never do anything, they're just like animated wallpaper playing behind out cast members, and the cut shots to them make it even worse.
 
Wait. Here's a few examples screencapped from that scene.  People who look like they're really important, cause we get long lingering looks at them, and yet we never hear a word from them (or have them be spoken to!).  Look how dramatic they look!!!
 

Edited May 7, 2015 by Kromm

[ottoDbusdriver]

The folks over at Gizmodo also think this should have been a case of vehicular manslaughter.

 

http://gizmodo.com/csi-cyber-and-the-killer-clickbait-internet-poker-pill-1702864705

 

Wait. Here's a few examples screencapped from that scene.  People who look like they're really important, cause we get long lingering looks at them, and yet we never hear a word from them (or have them be spoken to!).  Look how dramatic they look!!!

 

And for good measure none of them have names or have been introduced yet Raven is still in the opening credits as a series regular -- is Raven the CSI:Cyber equivalent of Richie's older brother Chuck from 'Happy Days' ?  All they needed to do was have Avery saying that they have been on a hiring spree so they can handle multiple cases at the same time or something similar -- because the staff basically quadrupled from one episode to the next.

 

In addition to the 6 folks snapshotted above by @Kromm, there is also a brunette woman with pink dress and white sweater who walks away from the camera behind Avery, a dark-haired woman with big really dark eyebrows next to a guy in a green shirt beside Simon, a dark-haired guy in a blue shirt on the phone behind Mundo, a brown-haired woman in a maroon shirt sitting next to a bald guy in a dark green sweater, a red-headed guy with douchey beard, a dark-haired woman in a white dress shirt, a red-headed guy in a white shirt wearing glasses, a dude in black pants with a gray sweater dropping off papers at a workstation, a guy in a dark purple shirt behind Bow Wow, a tall guy in a rust-colored shirt doing a fist pump standing next to a dark-haired woman wearing a dark-blue shirt with white speckles over a purpler shirt, a guy with a receding hairline, glasses and a douchey beard wearing a dark brown sweater over a light brown dress shirt, a light brown-haired woman with glasses wearing a blue shirt, and a guy with short brown hair and glasses wearing a white shirt.

 

Which makes 22 nameless people with no lines cheering on Avery, Krummie, Bow Wow, Simon and Mundo.

 

ETA: A little bit of duplication since I think Kromm added a few more photos while I was typing this up, but still 22 extras playing computer hacker.

Edited May 8, 2015 by ottoDbusdriver

[Kromm]

There's also an African-American woman back there too. 

I deleted my recording finally, so someone else is gonna have to find her!

[iscoffy]

Do we know these onlookers were all hackers? Perhaps some were bean counters wanting to know where the 250K was going. Or online poker enthusiasts brought in to inspire Krumm to new heights. Really, anything is possible with this show.

[Kromm]

If I'd had more patience, the shots would be even better.  The strawberry blond girl with the very bad roots in the second shot of my last post gets REALLY excited at a few points (she's on screen at least 4 times I think), doing fist pumps and the like.  The axe-murdery-looking blond guy and brown haired girl combo have some SUPER crazy expressions--they get at least 7-8 two-shots devoted to them during that ten minutes and most of them are ridiculous.  The guy rolling his eyes in the first still looks half asleep most of the time, but also appears at least 5 times.  

[ottoDbusdriver]

There's also an African-American woman back there too.

 

She walked behind the guy in the first snapshot in @Kromm's current post -- I thought she was already in one of the photos in @Kromm's original post before I posted, but I don't see her there anymore.

 

There's also a guy in a bright red shirt walking down the stairs by the big bank of monitors, a platinum blonde woman in a blue shirt down in the pit area, and a guy with short dark hair wearing a dark green pullover in the foreground as Avery walks down into the pit area.

[Kromm]

Do we know these onlookers were all hackers? Perhaps some were bean counters wanting to know where the 250K was going. Or online poker enthusiasts brought in to inspire Krumm to new heights. Really, anything is possible with this show.

The brown haired girl next to the blond axe-murdery-guy has one sequence where right as Bow Wow and Krummy figure something out (while all those graphics of the poker tables are flashing on the screen and the Krew is trying to find the way to track the baddie), they cut to her and she raises her arm and points to something on the monitor in front of them and you can actually sort of half-hear her say something like "it's there!"

She walked behind the guy in the first snapshot in @Kromm's current post -- I thought she was already in one of the photos in @Kromm's original post before I posted, but I don't see her there anymore.

Yeah, she might have been.  There was also a full screen moment with her as well, but I didn't screencap it. I changed the pic of the guy because the shot I did have with him (where I think she might have been behind him) simply had him kind of sleeping vs. the one I replaced it with where he's rolling his eyes.

I think there are also at least 10 OTHER extras even beyond the ones Otto pointed out who they keep having circle around outside this situation room and walk past the doorway.  Those guys don't get the strange closeups of the inside group though, so it's just my impression it's the same people sort of on an endless loop.

EDIT - Found her! (the African-American lady).  Or at least HALF of her.  I deleted the recording as I said, so can't get her full face (in a later part of the scene where she's whooping it up, and cheering), but here's the shot with the brown haired sleepy looking guy and her behind him...

 

Edited May 8, 2015 by Kromm

[iscoffy]

This is hilarious. I really think they simply have no idea how to make hacking seem interesting and/or compelling, so they are now adding extraneous cheering crowds to the high-fives and loud cries of triumph in a sad attempt to add tension and excitement. I would love to know the brief that was given to these actors to produce their amazing reactions.

I also love that the black hat can figure out that he should use an algorithm (revolutionary!), but the white hats just have Krum manually doing stuff. And his cheering section, of course.

Edited May 8, 2015 by iscoffy

[Kromm]

This is hilarious. I really think they simply have no idea how to make hacking seem interesting and/or compelling, so they are now adding extraneous cheering crowds to the high-fives and loud cries of triumph in a sad attempt to add tension and excitement. I would love to know the brief that was given to these actors to produce their amazing reactions.

As gut bustingly funny as the cheering parts are, they serve triple duty.  Early in the scene they all have super-intense "we're concentrating hard" tension faces, like they're all getting ulcers from the tensions.  Then in the part of the scene where everyone thinks the bad guy got away, they all have super-over-the-top upset faces, and audible groans and even a few "oh noes!" out loud.  THEN the cheering and "way to goes" and such later on.

[Driad]

 

Maybe these people are crew members, getting . . . not something to remember this show by, but something to show their families "I was on TV!"

[ottoDbusdriver]

EDIT - Found her! (the African-American lady).  Or at least HALF of her.  I deleted the recording as I said, so can't get her full face (in a later part of the scene where she's whooping it up, and cheering), but here's the shot with the brown haired sleepy looking guy and her behind him...

 

@Kromm -- found a better snapshot of her.

 

http://i.imgur.com/FXsUkR7.jpg

Edited May 8, 2015 by ottoDbusdriver

[Kromm]

 

 

Maybe these people are crew members, getting . . . not something to remember this show by, but something to show their families "I was on TV!"

 

This is the first episode I've noticed them, but I suppose I'll pay attention now to see if they use the same people in future episodes (and as MANY of them, since there were certainly a shitload of them in this episode--and as I said before occupying a LOT of camera-time/dedicated shots).

[Kromm]

BTW: credit where it's due.  I hadn't realized that thuganomics85 and shapeshifter also (earlier in the thread) had also noticed and commented on the legion of extras.  Good on you guys!

[iscoffy]

Why didn't Avery use her super-duper powers of observation on Paul, the guy mailing out the meds ?

 

 

Yes, Avery Ryan, who can tell if someone's lying about CYBER CRIME by staring at the corners of their mouths, can't figure out that if she tells a do-gooder that he's a) terminal  and b) helped kill at least one person, that she shouldn't let him wander into a bathroom by himself.  Apparently she can read micro-expressions, but macro ones are beyond her.

[shapeshifter]

BTW: credit where it's due. I hadn't realized that thuganomics85 and shapeshifter also (earlier in the thread) had also noticed and commented on the legion of extras. Good on you guys!

Thanks for the credit, and thanks especially for the screen grabs!

Maybe these people are crew members, getting . . . not something to remember this show by, but something to show their families "I was on TV!"

That's what I was thinking too. It's the only thing that makes sense. They could be crew family members too. I wondered if they got paid. Edited May 9, 2015 by shapeshifter

[Jamoche]

The folks over at Gizmodo also think this should have been a case of vehicular manslaughter.

 

http://gizmodo.com/csi-cyber-and-the-killer-clickbait-internet-poker-pill-1702864705

 

 

Something I missed:

“Sounds like a clickbait scheme,” Avery offers

 

Ah, no. Clickbait would be "You won't believe what this Oscar winning actress is doing these days!"

 

The Vulture recap is up - it's got some gifs that include the random strangers high-fiving.

[Tony]

Glad I'm not the only one who noticed all the extras. I was seriously paying more attention to them than the actual plot going on. It's funny how producers thought it was important to include 2 dozen "agents" who didn't contribute anything except high-fiving each other and giving fist pumps. They were probably just exited at Bow Wow's impeccable counting skills.

 

We've tracked down the back the perp is using in Lexington, Kentucky, but since it is after banking hours they will catch him at the bank when it opens in the morning -- are they unaware of how electronic banking works ?

 

Don't be silly, Otto - they tracked the money into the bank so they know they about wire transfers.  But nobody transfers money out of a bank - that takes walking in the front door with a big bag.  Cuz ... Cyber.

 

I'm more shocked that the writers didn't have him instructing the teller to fill this bag up.

[henripootel]

I'm more shocked that the writers didn't have him instructing the teller to fill this bag up.

Dressed as the Hamburgler.  The OLD Hamburgler, the one that looks like Ted Koppel.

Edited May 8, 2015 by henripootel

[Calamity Jane]

Did this crapfest get renewed for next year?  After much better shows (Forever, Battle Creek, e.g., yeah, I know, different networks, but still) got the axe?  I have completely quit watching this garbage; all I do is check here for the laughs.  It is just SO mind-numbingly bad - idiotic scripts, bad, bad, bad acting, all the hooha noted above, the cyber scare-of-the-week insanity, etc., etc.  Somebody went with a "high-concept" show without ever figuring out whether it would work on any level.  And then proceeded to make a bad idea the worst it could possibly be.  OMG. 

 

Oh, rats, found this on another page:

 

Speaking of that, Cyber has been renewed. So I guess that means Tobias gets to keep his job at the FBI for the time being.

 

In what universe does this make any sense?  They take a horrible show and put CSI in the title and it gets a free pass?  I think I'll come up with a couple of ideas and submit them -- CSI Crapfest, CSI Ridiculous Plot, CSI How Low Can We GO? 

Edited May 11, 2015 by Calamity Jane

[BooksRule]

I just thought of something.  Somewhere during the episode, Peter MacNichol's character tells the new guy (Shad Moss)--I don't know any character names except for Avery--to come see him when this (the case?) is wrapped up.  Was there a scene with them meeting?  If not, will we find out later?  (Maybe he wanted him to do a special project for him?)

 

I also found the huge number of extras to be really distracting.  On other CSI shows, I seem to remember seeing various techs in various labs going about CSI business while our heroes acted in the foreground.  It was more natural.  Why didn't they go that way, if they wanted to show that other people actually work in the building?