] On one level -- on most levels, actually -- Tarantino and
] prime-time's highest-rated dramatic series seemed like a
] poor match. The director's strengths lie mainly in black
] humor and eccentric characterization, while the "CSI"
] franchise is resolutely unfunny and its running cast of
] characters can only politely be called archetypes.
] Fragments or vestiges is more like it; cardboard cut-outs
] would also work. Watching stony CSI team leader Grissom
] (William Petersen) trying to engage in trademark
] Tarantino banter about his childhood relationship with
] Trigger -- that would be Rogers' trusty steed -- is
] almost physically painful.
]
] Furthermore, Tarantino isn't much of a plot architect
] (although I'm sure he'd beg to differ). Instead, he's a
] pack rat who snitches bits of story from here and there
] and makes them stick together with a distinctive
] aesthetic. Whether you like him or not, his movies
] breathe, while the "CSI" shows are essentially finely
] tuned machines. They depend on whiz-bang reenactments and
] animations, and on plots that switch back once, twice and
] sometimes three times before dropping you back at your
] front door, 59 minutes past the hour.
]
] There are deeper incompatibilities, too. "CSI" is the big
] television hit of the George W. Bush era, and the message
] it delivers over and over is, appropriately, a simple
] one: Step outside the boundaries of conventional family
] life -- into bisexuality, cross-dressing, Ecstasy raves,
] Goth rituals, or just some extramarital whoopee -- and
] you're likely to wind up exsanguinated on someone else's
] bathroom floor, with pantyhose in your mouth. Tarantino
] is a culture icon of the '90s if there ever was one, and
] it's safe to say that his moral code, to the extent he
] has one that isn't quoted from Sam Peckinpah, flows
] through a more lubricious valley.
]
] Still, there was something to this combination --
] something like getting sick-drunk on tequila and then
] rolling down a hillside of poison ivy, maybe. Tarantino
] grasped one important fact about "CSI" that is a perfect
] fit for him: It's a sick puppy of a TV show, probably the
] most sadistic thing on the air that doesn't feature
] midriff-wearing bimbos with spray-on tans competing with
] each other. In inflicting terrible torments on one of the
] CSI cops, and perhaps the least likely one at that, he
] tries to turn the series' cruelty on its head. Eads, a
] jarhead-jock type who normally displays the emotional
] range of a refrigerator, infuses Stokes' terrible plight
] with a wrenching humanity that's almost entirely new to
] this show.

CSI and Tarantino are both different, guilty pleasures of mine.
This review nicely characterizes why both are, and why they make odd bedfellows. I'll have to track this episode down myself.

When Tarantino had a cameo on Alias, another guilty pleasure, that was something. It made sense. And has a great character. But CSI?