The 5 Stages of Grief for ‘CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’

We all process loss in our own way. 

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is going off the air Sunday with a two-hour episode sure to be spattered with blood and bathed in eerie blue light. Fan reaction has followed a familiar pattern: 

1. Denial 


Uh…yeah. No. I don’t think so. CSI was repeatedly designated the most watched TV show in the world. In 2012, it had 63 million viewers. You must be thinking of one of the spin-offs. CSI: Poughkeepsie, maybe? No way in hell they’d cancel the original.   

2. Anger


Those bastards! Great, let the murderers, the psychos, the thrill-killers win. May Vegas and all of Clark County be bathed in blood, with no one left to analyze the spatter or tweeze out the slugs. 

3. Bargaining


Take Danson. He’s yours. Just let us keep Lady Heather, the fetish club owner turned sex therapist. In fact, let her run the team—she’ll whip them into shape. 

4. Depression


No matter how many killers you put away with forensic science, deductive reasoning, designer eyewear, and high-powered mini flashlights, the corpses keep turning up, day after day. Evil is implacable. The tide of blood is ever rising. Vegas is a charnel house. Fuck everything.

5. Acceptance


Eh, you know what? Forensic science is rarely as solid as it is on TV, but juries primed by CSI,Dexter,Bones,NCIS,Forensic Files, etc. are now utterly convinced of its efficacy. Real crime-scene investigators are overworked, ill-trained, and often sloppy. Hundreds of innocent people have been wrongly convicted due to shoddy analysis. Also, the show went downhill after Grissom left. Bag it and tag it.

Photos by CBS