And now, Second Life in high definition.

(Oh, and by the way: it's 3:33am again. Do you still know where your supercop is?)

O.K. I know nothing about Second Life. So I can't say if that was realistic.

However, I call foul on almost everything related to the Congressman.

1) There is absolutely no way that any staff member gives up the address and private cell of a Member of Congress like that without more proof of who needs to know, who they are and why.

2) Regular Members of Congress generally do not travel with security details even if they aren't sneaking off to have affairs. Sometimes they will get Secret Service protection for short periods of time if there have been specific, credible death threats. Even in Washington most of them are not exactly celebrities. There is a reason lobbyists have pocket sized face books to remind themselves who is who.

3) Congressional Offices are not all equipped with video conferencing capabilities. I work in a legislative branch support agency and I've had my meetings bumped because some Congressional office wants my video conference slot and room.

4) I find it highly unlikely that a Member of Congress would create a Second Life profile on the official network. It's too risky publicitywise. Not that they haven't done dumber things, but it just doesn't rind true to me.

WTF was THAT??? Did they REALLY end the episode with Mac looking for the suspect down a laundry chute???? WTF?

Well, that was different. Not sure I liked it though. I hate cliffhangers!

Also, CSI:NY is getting very involved in this hi-tech/interactive storyline and for those of us who don't have a lot of time to play games on the internet, we get left behind.

As for the episode itself, it did seem a little far-fetched. I know that you can find out someone's ISP, but can you really pin someone down to a real address that quickly? I thought the police would need a warrant to get that kind of information. Or maybe I should get off the internet now?

Although there were certainly things wrong with this episode (chief among them the fact that there seemed to be a lot of unrealistic things about the technology they have at the crime lab and a couple of deductive leaps they made), overall I was entertained by it. It didn't get me interested in exploring second life, but that kind of thing isn't something that would really ever interest me.




They did. Although I think they showed the chute door closing so it seems like she was actually hiding in there. Pretty impractical. Plus, don't they have tons of cops searching the place and "locking the building down" so no one can get out? I guess we will see how it ends in another episode.

Since they haven't actually repealed the Bill of Rights since the last time I checked, yes, in theory they would need a warrant. Although, maybe they included the Congressman to use one of the Patriot Act terrorist provisions, but even then someone higher up than Mac Taylor would have to approve it.

I guess the ISPs could have voluntarily cooperated, but that seems kind of unlikely. Certainly, not that quickly.

That was the most bizarre episode of any show I've ever seen. It was like an hour long infomercial for Second Life. Problem is that it was the worst infomercial possible. Who the heck wants to play that game since if you become popular in it someone will come along and put a bullet through your first life skull? Then there was the subtle whiff of loser in the air for anyone who played. Even Mr. Senator was a loser since he was just trolling for sex. And then you want me to go online and play this? Let me think about it and I'll get back to you in my third or fourth life.

I had the impression that they were implying that they had the technology to trace the location of the box the player was using from their ten second online encounters. You would only need the isp for records of the account holder. This was more along the lines of caller id. The ip address you are using, if you aren't using a proxy, isn't a secret. Since theoretically they were communicating with the other person directly, similar to p2p, they shouldn't need a warrant just to see the ip address and tie that address to a physical location. But I don't know if that technology exists to get them to a specific apartment in ten seconds.

WHAT?!

That's how I ended the episode. Practically jumped out of the chair. Everything was going fine until the end credits. I hate cliffhangers!

It wasn't the best episode. Let's start with how much time we watched the custodian dance with a mannequin (I could have been watching Flack!). But since I was upset they didn't get the perp, it means I was still very entertained.

Adam stole the show though, didn't he? His geekiness just prevailed over anything that upset me. He saved the day with "I need some water," after his triumph in the fight against evil cartoons. And I'm a Flack lover, so that says a lot!

I was also pleased that they followed up on some of the Peyton stuff, although I was surprised he opened up to Flack. I hope Mac doesn't regret not getting on that plane. I'm bothered by this break up just because there was so much emotion with thier romance last season. Maybe I'm supposed to be, I stay away from spoilers.

That was the stupidest hour of television I've seen all month.

It had all the subtlety of a falling anvil. But I'm used to that.

Everything about computers... wrong. And stupidly so. Normally I'm used to that, but this was egregious even for Hollywood. I have to feel sorry for anyone who works at Second Life, because I would never want to use it based on watching this ... thing.

But the worst part wasn't related to the computers. They had a video conference number as the telephone contact? And their system just worked with it? And the congressman's aide didn't ask for ID? And on finding of a possible threat to a Congressman the NYPD sends the CSI guys out to the scene? All by themselves?

Where was the Secret Service? The dozens of uniformed cops who'd've been called to surround the building? And hey! Why didn't they stop the elevator once she got in?

Unwatchably stupid. This is now as bad as CSI:MyCrappy, and it may get the same treatment from me -- cancelling the season pass.

It was really, really bad. Don't they have consultants for things like this?

Not one of my favorite episodes, but it was light years better than last week's episode. And unlike the premiere, it kept my attention throughout.

I'm glad the single-case episodes have become the norm this season. It's nice to see the whole team interacting in scenes, as well as the mix of different pairs and small groups throughout the episode. There wasn't as much Danny, Lindsay, or Hawkes as I would have liked, but that's par for the course with Lindsay and Hawkes. It was nice to see Lindsay out of the lab for the second time this season.

Adam was cracking me up as he played the game in the coliseum. My brother plays some online fighter games and he's tried to show them off to me. I have no interest in the games themselves, but it can be fun to watch someone else getting such a kick out of it.

Nice bits of continuity from last season. Johnny's disease and plans to kill himself are reminiscent of Stella's HIV scare and the suicide group case (I believe in "What Schemes May Come"). Danny got to ask Johnny a question about standing someone up, evoking memories of "Love Run Cold." There were references to Peyton, of course, and it's nice to see that last season's on-going discord between Flack and Mac (beginning with "Consequences") has evolved into a trusting friendship.

It was an okay episode, but I do have to give props for being about a million times better than Law and Order:SVU's Second Life episode. Oh, I'm sorry - Another Youniverse. At least there was a legitimate purpose to the hit woman using SL (setting up the meeting) compared to the guy in SVU (Guy likes to kidnap people in real life, thus also kidnaps them in Second Life just for funsies, natch)

Don't know anything about Second Life, hope I never do. Watching too much television is sufficient to keep me safely away from actual human interaction, and it probably still cheaper.

Ignoring that part of the story, I hated that they ended it the way they did (how many storylines to we have going now?). With the writer's strike, and the ratings this thing is getting, they aren't going to have time to wrap everything up.
We have Stella's crazy stalker. We have Mac's 3:33 guy and the bloody T shirt. Now we have this bitch in the garbage chute like Bridget Fonda. What else is hanging out there?

Plus that episode, (creatively titled "Avatar"), only aired about 3 weeks ago. The best (re funniest) part of that episode was when the Second Universe owner balked in horror at Olivia's request to "shut off the sun!!" since it would create havoc and ruin the gamers' reason to live. Also I had serious deja vu when they stormed the back office of the gamer guy in that shop. I think even that scene was also in the SVU episode.
Next thing they'll be taking a page from Dick Wolf's book and start ripping into the Catholic church. Internet bad. Religion bad. At least in the L&O universe and now the CSI one it seems.
Also, Access Hollywood reported that CSI is one of the shows that have halted production while the wild fires have been going on.
This bugs, because up until a few years ago it seems cops were always trying to keep a perp on the phone for at least 30 seconds since that's how long it took to trace just the phone number, never mind the address. NY needs to demand more funding to get one of Miami's 3D hologram crime solving machine thingies.

Also the NY crime lab needs to set their Netscape security settings to High and not Medium since this is the second time in almost as many weeks that hackers have managed to get into their system.

Mac must've suffered from temporary blindness to realize that blond-hair girl was not green-hair girl.

Hee. You would think they would have stronger firewalls or whatever, right?

Anyway, this episode wasn't a favorite by any means for me, but it did at least keep me entertained for the hour. And since I don't know a whole lot about the abilities/limits of current technology and all of that, I didn't spend the hour getting annoyed at what the CSIs should and should not have been able to do.

I did think they spent too much time with things like the mannequin dance and the silly coliseum fight. Anthony Zuiker wants to do an episode with Second Life, whatever, but don't take so much time away from the characters I tune in to watch to show me cartoons! (Sorry Adam, avatars.)


I did like that moment and I find their relationship interesting. This isn't the first time this season that Mac has confided in Flack. Mac told Stella first about the 333 guy, but the next person he told was Flack. It will be interesting to see if this new dynamic continues.

I do have to mention how annoyed I was about the garbage chute thing. Even ignoring how she could have fit in there, somehow she was able to suspend herself so that she could watch Mac? and then drop who knows how many floors into the waiting dumpster? I just don't see that happening. Why couldn't she run down a fire escape or something? Why did they have to give her some stupid escape that is more likely to happen in something like Second Life than the real world? Silly and pointless was all it was. Whatever, I'm not all that excited about the resolution for this, so they kind of lost me on that. I'm more excited about things I've heard for other upcoming episodes than I am about whatever resolution they're coming up with for this storyline.

I think this show has jumped the shark. It's getting to be like CSI:Miami only with better characters. First of all, it was a one-hour commercial for Second Life, and when you have to design the story to fit into a commercial tie-in, it's not going to be a good story.

Secondly, the NY crime lab's competence has fallen almost as low as Miami's. Two computer network compromises in three episodes, by people who weren't even trying to break in?


Seriously! If they'd sent the nearest policemen to the hotel, they could have protected him. I'm surprised the chase didn't end with the girl running across the rooftops or escaping down the unguarded fire escape.

Not in the real world. You would have to at least have to have access to the ISP's account records and log files.

Another big plot hole. If he bought a gun to kill himself, why was he still alive (since he already had the gun)? And if he was planning to wait until he was sicker, why carry the gun around instead of hiding it in his apartment?

Also, she apparently was able to get into that tiny laundry chute in 1-2 seconds -- without making a sound -- and then dropped down or climbed up to get away -- also completely NOISELESSLY. Riiiiiiight . . .

Since people keep asking: in order to find out where a particular IP address is, you have to:

1) Find out the IP address.
2) Find out what block the address is. ("whois -h whois.arin.net 1.2.3.4" for the command-liners out there.)
3) Find out where that block has been delegated to, if it has. (This depends on who did the delegation, but there are some standards. Sorta.)
4) Call up the alleged owner of the address block, and ask to speak to security, or legal, whoever is in charge of dealing with law enforcement requests.
5) The alleged owner of the address block then needs to look up, in their current system activity, which account has that particular address.
6) Then they need to map that particular account to a real-world address.

While some ISPs (all of the larger ones) are going to have an expedited process for dealing with LEA, this is still going to take some time. (And this still wasn't the stupidest aspect of the episode.)

They're a lot more accurate about the cellphone location, at least.

I see that I am wildly outnumbered, but I really liked it. Sure, the procedures aren't spot-on, but I don't particularly care. I got a nice charge out of seeing Adam in all his geeky glory, and Mac so unsure of WTF was going on with the online world.

The one thing I loved was when Mac was being all awkward with "Johnny" and going "I love waterfalls" and Stella going "You have no game whatsoever" and taking the earpiece away from him. It was an adorable little moment.

I agree with you, mentalpretzel (great name, btw). I don't usually let myself be bothered by the nitpicks, although I understand they annoy some viewers more than others. I thought the story was interesting, but, man, I did finally fast-forward through the opening dance scene because, for goodness sakes, that was taking forever and had no real point.

I think that Mac's fish-out-of-water issues were my favorite part of the episode. "I like waterfalls. Don't you?" Hee! I really watch NY for the characters, so I love having moments like that.

I assume that they'll pick up this storyline later, which isn't my first choice but I can deal with it as long as it's not too long from now. I still like the 3:33 thread moving slowly through all the episodes, but I dould do without Stella's stalker. What could be the possible outcome of that storyline? He turns out to be a nice, normal guy? OK, great. Or, he turns out to be a creepy, stalkery nut who ends up harming Stella, and, oh, hey, BTDT, show! Hopefully there will be a surprise twist that makes the whole thing worthwhile.

Favorite quote? "Who's the tacky dresser?" "That's me." Ha!

I figured she went up the chute. Hell, if she can fit into that thing, I think she must actually be some sort of alien life form. She did look cool with her big gun and floaty coat though - very Kill Bill-ish.

They need new IT guys (CSI: IT?) or to not network every frackin' computer in the place. Especially ones used to play games.

I enjoyed it, but I'm easy that way.

Never heard of those games before but, I was thrown off by the cliffhanger. I guess this isn't the last we heard of Ms. Assassin. Also, the 3:33 guy is beginning to annoy me. Who is this guy?

What has happened to that new female lab tech, the one who woke up in her underwear in the season premiere? I think the actresses name was Bess Wohl.

I thought she and Adam were suppost to have some kind of story, and it would have been fun to see her reaction to his Second Life abilities, or to find that they are both Second Life players, and have them competing to see who could find the killer's Avatar first or best.

Hmmm . . . do we know for sure 3:33 is a guy? So far, all we've heard is a voice on the phone. Maybe 3:33 is Avatar assassin lady using one of those nifty voice modulators. Remember how thrown Mac was when she identified him as Detective Mac Taylor in Second Life? Couldn't she have just killed Mac from her handy-dandy hiding place in the laundry chute there at the end of the episode? If so, why didn't she? Is Mac going to find himself wound up in her next scheme?

According to TV.com There will be a second part to this episode that will air on February 6th 2008.

[quote]There will be a second part to this episode that will air on February 6th 2008. [quote]
Oh be still my beating heart...not.

This was possibly one of the least entertaining eps in a long while. Definitely the least interesting to me this season. I wonder how much Second Life had to pay to get featured so heavily. Frankly it felt like an episode long advertisment and I usually F-fwd through them.

That said, there were a few highlights. The Mac/Flack conversation about Peyton was the main one. Apart from confirmation that Peyton isn't coming back (at least I hope that's the last of her), I loved the fact that not only did Flack notice and comment on Mac's lack of sleep, but Mac actually volunteered the info about Peyton dumping him.
(although surely people would have noticed that she hadn't shown up back in the M.E.'s dept and wondered what was up.)

That episode was.....different. I'm not sure what in the hell was going on. I do like when someone actually gets away since it happens so rarely on CSI (of course she will probably be captured in a future episode) but this was all over the place. It really felt like one long commercial for the CSI games. I will concur that it was better than the L&O:SVU avatar episode that was on earlier this season.

No kidding, she also got out of the lab coat. Maybe next episode she will get out in the field for more than one scene.

Word. It's called a DMZ. You put computers that are liable to attacks or must be open to the internet on the DMZ, sensitive high-value systems live behind one or more firewalls. You do not link them all together.

The whole episode flirted with CSI:Miami levels of boneheadedness, but at least the characters have remained likable.
And between this episode and The Office with Dwight's "Second Second Life." I'm not really in a hurry to play it.

Too much advertising SL and not enough actual detecting. Maybe if they weren't so busy getting the product placement in, they might have actually caught the killer in one episode. Nice banter between Mac and Stella over his utter inability to act like anything other than Detective Mac Taylor online, as well as Adam being the Geek in this episode (bet he has a female Second Life character, too), but to nitpick - there is no way anyone could engage in an online arena fight in front of that massive screen without (real world) ducking when somebody swings a HUGE sword in your direction (was it blue/green screened on afterwards?). Couldn't believe Mac let the girl walk past him initially without realising it might be the killer and it took Stella pointing out that she's changed appearance to realise (he thought she was a nuatural green head?). But the killer was a remarkably cool customer to go through with the hit when she saw the cops arriving as she did. Maybe she really is the 333 killer (though, as far as we know, has the 333 killer actually killed anyone yet? The bloody shirt is suggestive, but hardly conclusive), who certainly has the chutzpah to carry it out and clearly is toying with Mac, which would explain why she didn't take the shot when she had the chance.

Jesus. This episode - particularly the ending - was like Miami levels of "what the Christ". At least there were some great highlights:

Mac's total social retardation ("I like waterfalls"? Smooth, killer) and... well, Mac doing Second Life in general was pretty hilarious. (I haven't seen the episode but once, when it aired, so I forget - his avatar was a woman in slutty clothing at one point, right? Because I recall that and I recall it being kind of awesome.)

Adam geeking out in the battle arena. Adam's so cute, I love when we get to see more of him (even if he is getting the shit beaten out of him like in Snow Day, which was hard to watch partly because of that). If only the producers would extend the opening credits just a bit more so they could smoosh him and Sid in.

The ridiculousness of nobody really batting an eyelash at Assassin!Venus tottering around that hotel at the end until somebody said something. Or maybe I'm misremembering.

And wacky tango janitor man from the beginning.

...Oh, and LAUNDRY CHUTE. What the fuck was with that?



Looks like the strike sent that one to hell. They don't have to follow up on it. Really. Ever. (Besides, it'd just add on to the "the fuck was this?" feeling the episode already leaves behind if they just let it hang there forever.)

I think it was a bit daft of Mac to open that chute door at all, if she had still been there she could of shot hi any time she chose. The Show does seem to be getting a little strange at the moment.