Editorials: CSI takes on Rollercoaster-esque plot

Posted at 1:22 PM EDT (1722 GMT)

Apr. 18th, 2004 -- On May 6th, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation has a big episode planned to try and lure viewers away from NBC (this is the same night as the Friends series finale) and to CBS. This sort of tactic is common in television, of course, but the topic of this episode is not. Entitled “Turn of the screws,” this one is set at the fictional Las Vegas Sphinx Amusement Park and centers around a roller coaster crash.

"This season in general we've been focusing on small storylines, but this is a big story," said writer and producer Josh Berman. "It'll have the highest body count ever." CSI in general focuses on smaller, accurately researched stories, which have garnered it a lot of acclaim. However, this story seems not only far-fetched but also possibly damaging to the amusement industry as a whole. The episode was finally filmed at Pharaoh’s Lost Kingdom in Redlands after being turned down by numerous larger parks who didn’t want a coaster accident—even a staged one—associated with their name. It’s little wonder why.

Director Deran Sarafian was paraphrased in the Redlands Daily Facts as saying “when investigators get to the scene, they find more bodies than seats on the roller coaster, and eventually surmise that one was already dead in the trunk of a parked car hit by the falling coaster.”

This sort of quote is particularly disturbing. Although the bodies are fictional as is the entire plot, there are viewers who will see the catastrophe as just as likely to happen as any other murder and consequent investigation that is shown on the show. Anybody that has worked for a park or around the industry for a while can tell you that it simply isn’t so.

“Turn of the screws” refers to someone—the articles I found do not mention whether it is a park employee or outside general public member—sabotaging a rollercoaster to either cover up the murder of the body in the trunk or to kill more park goers (the spoilers I read did not make this clear). In the episode, the coaster actually derails and goes crashing to the parking lot below, squishing a car.

Even in the early days of coasters before up-stop wheels, crashes of this magnitude were rare. Today they are virtually unheard of. Coasters derail, and yes, in the case of Disney’s Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (which the producers and directors of CSI insist this episode was not influenced by) sometimes guests die, but the sort of body count implied by the episodes’ writers has literally not occurred in over 80 years (and that was the result of a fire, not a derailment). I would sooner see some real research turning out an episode based upon a carnival (where deaths are more likely if not more prevalent) or sabotage causing the death of one or two passengers. But an entire train? The only time I’ve borne witness to such a travesty was on Rollercoaster Tycoon, and that game has been criticized in the past for unrealistic crashes.

My real fear is that viewers in the general populace that are heavily influenced by television and the news will take the episode to heart and be afraid to take their children to parks this summer. There are far worse things to fear that rollercoaster sabotage, but a particularly vivid example on television might keep some kids from the parks. I don’t expect this to hurt the industry as a whole, but I know my own mother will probably be warning me about it come May 8 when I go to opening day at Cedar Point, and I’m 23.

Lastly, it is possible that CSI will come through and this episode will be brilliantly handled in the way I’ve come to expect from them in the past. There is a quoted line in the Redlands article from the fictional Woody, played by Ron Dean, told Grissom, as he leaned over the snack shack, "I just hope they don't blame the coaster. It may not be the Manhattan Express at New York, New York or the Desperado in Primm, but it still makes grown men scream."

If this episode proves to be well written it can be used to show that coasters are not always the problem when accidents occur. Park security and maintenance (which should keep such accidents from happening) may be shown as being particularly tight as to make such an accident unlikely if not entirely unthinkable. However, it’s just as likely that the security at the imaginary park will be lax, or that maintenance will miss something that real park maintenance should never miss, and that the sabotage will slip through the cracks of a faulty system and lead to the deaths.

Regardless, I suppose I’ll be watching on May 6 with my fingers crossed that “Turn of the screws” will not only be a “big” episode designs to lure viewers during sweeps, but will also be an accurate one that the industry needn’t be afraid of.

For more information see the Redlands Daily Facts
and a site for show fans, CSI Files.