Mystery shows not having a setup clue as to the killer or motive

[Tom Sawyer]

My favorite is when they locate a victim's place of birth by analyzing the isotopes in their tooth enamel.

Yet another insanely crazy database they have on hand.

I, for one, am impressed by the commitment displayed by low-level civil servants in the Bones' world. They travel around the country analyzing everything everywhere and not one of them slacks off on the job. It would really hamper their investigations if a particular species of fruit larvae existed in ten places in Virginia, but the team only knew about five of them because some unpaid interns didn't feel like hiking up another damned hill and just wrote down that there weren't any bugs in that sector.

 

[James Brown]

Don't forget that all camera video feeds everywhere are available with just a couple of keyboard clicks.

 

[repoman]

Don't forget that all camera video feeds everywhere are available with just a couple of keyboard clicks.

Is this partly because of how fast the episodes have to move?

 

[Shadowy Man]

Don't forget that all camera video feeds everywhere are available with just a couple of keyboard clicks.

And they all have infinite resolution, too.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Don't forget that all camera video feeds everywhere are available with just a couple of keyboard clicks.

And how hacking into a drone flying over Afghanistan can be done in a couple of minutes... out of the blue.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Don't forget that all camera video feeds everywhere are available with just a couple of keyboard clicks.

And how hacking into a drone flying over Afghanistan can be done in a couple of minutes... out of the blue.

I think the best was when that one guy hacked into a bank from prison by scratching a script for a computer virus into the bar codes on library books.

They've had a lot of dumb fucking ideas over the years.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

And how hacking into a drone flying over Afghanistan can be done in a couple of minutes... out of the blue.

I think the best was when that one guy hacked into a bank from prison by scratching a script for a computer virus into the bar codes on library books.

They've had a lot of dumb fucking ideas over the years.

That bad guy had so much potential, a twisted vigilante, but instead just an uber computer hack that was an expert in everything and his end was terribly anticlimactic. What was really cool about those episodes was they'd transition to the next episode as if nothing traumatic had recently occurred.

 

[ksen]

All police crime dramas are formulaic, and each has their own formula. Real life crime is not that interesting. Most murders don't need solving because there was never any mystery about it.

The only two police procedural shows I've regularly watched in the past several years are Bones and The Closer. Each has a very consistent formula. To solve a Bones mystery, look for a superfluous character in the first 10 minutes. This person will say something totally unrelated to the case, but turn out to be the killer.

Bones got worse with time with the whole,

Hodgins: Well, I pulled a microscopic piece of pollen that was on the victims shoe lace. I ran the superspectrofrotometryscope on the same and discovered that the piece of pollen wasn't fresh, but was digested by an earthworm plotus most rarous that is only found in a small patch of Virginia.

Bones: Good jo....

Hodgins: But there is more! That earthworm wasn't the first to eat the pollen. The earthworm at the piece of pollen while going through the soil. The soil was a composite of topsoil and cow dung. A cow ingested the pollen and excreted it into the ground. I found traces of a particle that is used in a particular brand of rendered cow food that is only sold at one store at the corner of Main and First in a small town in Virginia.

Bones: Incred....

Hodgins: On a hunch I ran the samples through the WhoozyWhazzit machine and determine the food was purchased on sale back in January 17, 1983 by a man named John Williamton. *pulls up picture*

Bones: Wow... and he is a perfect match based on the rendering of the killer's face Angela did based on the reflection she saw of the killer in the victim's eyes.

lol

 

[ksen]

Bones got worse with time with the whole,

Hodgins: Well, I pulled a microscopic piece of pollen that was on the victims shoe lace. I ran the superspectrofrotometryscope on the same and discovered that the piece of pollen wasn't fresh, but was digested by an earthworm plotus most rarous that is only found in a small patch of Virginia.

Bones: Good jo....

Hodgins: But there is more! That earthworm wasn't the first to eat the pollen. The earthworm at the piece of pollen while going through the soil. The soil was a composite of topsoil and cow dung. A cow ingested the pollen and excreted it into the ground. I found traces of a particle that is used in a particular brand of rendered cow food that is only sold at one store at the corner of Main and First in a small town in Virginia.

Bones: Incred....

Hodgins: On a hunch I ran the samples through the WhoozyWhazzit machine and determine the food was purchased on sale back in January 17, 1983 by a man named John Williamton. *pulls up picture*

Bones: Wow... and he is a perfect match based on the rendering of the killer's face Angela did based on the reflection she saw of the killer in the victim's eyes.

The rare whatsit that if found only in a tiny area and is the essential clue, is a common plot element in all science oriented crime mysteries. It probably started with Sherlock Holmes.

There is an ITV series, based on books of the same name, "Brother Cadfael", who is a medieval monk and herbologist. His intimate knowledge of rare plant species and the half acre of Britain where it grows is often essential to solving the crime.

Of all the standard crime genre formulas, this maybe the most formulaic of all.

I liked Cadfael.

 

[repoman]

watching Columbo second season first episode, "Short Fuse".

Wow, Roddy McDowell is a great actor. Very Subtle.

 

[marc]

The rare whatsit that if found only in a tiny area and is the essential clue, is a common plot element in all science oriented crime mysteries. It probably started with Sherlock Holmes.

Bones abuses the science though. It presumes massive databases exist for everything. One episode was cracked open when a deadly blow was connected to an obscure award statue via software that can't possibly exist.

Only watched one complete episode of Bones. It was a crossover with Sleepy Hollow, which to my thinking would destroy the basic idea of Bones. They brought in a connection to a series that regularly deals with magic, demons, and other supernatural entities. That opens up the possibility that some of their cases could be supernatural in nature, making their investigations inadequate to handle it.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Bones abuses the science though. It presumes massive databases exist for everything. One episode was cracked open when a deadly blow was connected to an obscure award statue via software that can't possibly exist.

Only watched one complete episode of Bones. It was a crossover with Sleepy Hollow, which to my thinking would destroy the basic idea of Bones. They brought in a connection to a series that regularly deals with magic, demons, and other supernatural entities. That opens up the possibility that some of their cases could be supernatural in nature, making their investigations inadequate to handle it.

Ya, that was truly idiotic. Not only the whole part where the FBI guy went "Well, there certainly are an awful lot of very strange killings in this small town they're from" and didn't immediately follow that up with "Since the number of deaths indicates that the local authorities are clearly not up to the task of dealing with whatever group of psychotic serial killers are terrorizing the place, I'm going to send a team of FBI agents over to help out all of these tax paying citizens who are currently facing phenomenal risks", but also that the existence of a supernatural realm where demons enter our world to kill off humans undercuts the entire premise of the show.

If that's the reality of the world which they live in, then scientists at the level of Bones and her team would be as well versed in the nature of the supernatural as they would be in all the other aspects of the natural world.

 

[thebeave]

watching Columbo second season first episode, "Short Fuse".

Wow, Roddy McDowell is a great actor. Very Subtle.

I've been watching all the old Columbo episodes the last couple of years. Used to watch it religiously as a kid with my sister when it was part of the ABC Sunday Mystery Movie (or something like that). They would alternate Columbo with McCloud, McMillan & Wife and couple of others I forgot. So its been fun reliving my memories of that show. Its interesting seeing how the killers used 1970's "hi tech" to make it look like they didn't do it. Answering machines, tape recorders, security cameras, VCRs, etc were extensively used in tricky ways. There was even an episode where Robby the Robot was used. That one was a bit dumb, though.

The "Short Fuse" episode was a good one. Especially the ending with

Show

the exploding cigars on the gondola

.

Another good one was with William Shatner who tried to use a VCR to cover his crime (VCRs in the home were almost unheard of back then). Of course, Columbo figured it all out in the end. I remember Columbo asking him, "How much does one of these cost?", and Shatner replied, "About $3000". You can't even give those away these days. Times have changed.

Its also interesting to see how social interactions have changed over the years. Can you imagine this scene in today's tv? I nearly fell out of my Laz-E-Boy chair when I saw it.

 

[Jayjay]

For a while I thought Columbo had left this thread and we moved on to other shows. But then there is just one more thing that someone remembers about Columbo that seals the deal...

 

[ksen]

lol