boredI've been adjusting this for a while and I will probably still feel an urge to tweak it now and then, but I think it's about as good as it's going to get. I tried very hard to judge episodes as a whole and not simply because of one great character/ship moment, but such moments often served as tiebreakers. If a character storyline was woven throughout the episode, of course, that went a long way towards bumping it up or down on the list.
Reading back through my old reviews in doing this, I ended up contradicting a lot of my initial opinions...
CSI, Season 7: "Miniature Madness"
(subheading: GSR is Canon)
CSI, Season 7: "Miniature Madness"
(subheading: GSR is Canon)
- Empty Eyes
- Fannysmackin’
- Sweet Jane
- Built to Kill, pt. 2
- Built to Kill, pt. 1
- Redrum
- Law of Gravity
- Lab Rats
- Loco Motives
- Monster in a Box
- Double Cross
- Leapin' Lizards
- Ending Happy
- The Good, The Bad, and the Dominatrix
- Living Doll [and it pains me, PAINS ME, to rank this one lower than the one above]
- Leavin’ Las Vegas
- Post-Mortem
- Toe Tags
- Happenstance
- Burnout
- Living Legend
- Meet Market
- Fallen Idols
- Big Shots
Wow, CSI was easy in comparison to Miami...for the latter, I picked out the first two with ease, and the next five without much more difficulty, but the remaining 17 were all so bad it was hard to decide which were the worst.
CSI: Miami, Season 5: "With Great Wealth Comes Endless Crime Scenes"
(subheading: Mole Becomes CSI, WTF)
CSI: Miami, Season 5: "With Great Wealth Comes Endless Crime Scenes"
(subheading: Mole Becomes CSI, WTF)
- No Man’s Land
- Man Down
- Burned
- Rio
- Throwing Heat
- Internal Affairs
- Kill Switch
- Curse of the Coffin
- Death Pool 100
- Darkroom
- Just Murdered
- Born to Kill
- Eminent Domain
- A Grizzly Murder
- Bloodline
- Rush
- Backstabbers
- Going, Going, Gone
- Triple Threat
- Going Under
- Broken Home
- If Looks Could Kill
- Come As You Are
- High Octane
NY's actually the hardest of all, since I loved pretty much the entire season, but the best character moments were often matched up with dull cases, and vice versa. I tried to strike a balance, but halfway through summer I'll probably want to unravel this whole list and start over. Oh well.
CSI: NY, Season 3: "The Lab of Love (and Angst)"
(subheading: does not yet exist, because I haven't decided how to articulate how this season's theme was about past actions resulting in negative consequences in the present)
CSI: NY, Season 3: "The Lab of Love (and Angst)"
(subheading: does not yet exist, because I haven't decided how to articulate how this season's theme was about past actions resulting in negative consequences in the present)
- Snow Day
- Silent Night
- Consequences
- Not What It Looks Like
- ...Comes Around
- Past Imperfect
- Raising Shane
- Sleight Out of Hand
- The Ride In
- People With Money
- The Lying Game
- Murder Sings the Blues
- Oedipus Hex
- Hung Out to Dry
- Heart of Glass
- Cold Reveal
- What Schemes May Come
- Some Buried Bones
- Daze of Wine and Roaches
- Sweet 16
- Here’s To You, Mrs. Azrael
- Love Run Cold
- Obsession
- Open and Shut
There's another version of this game, with considerably more interesting commentary, in which I pitted the three shows against one another on a weekly basis and declared a winner for best first ep, best second ep, etc. Alas, that's somewhere on my internetless computer and I don't feel inspired enough to dig it out just now.
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ETA: Because I cannot resist any surveys that promise me a chance to talk at great length about various 'ships... yanked from 
scsquidsnaps
[it occurs to me, after the fact, that I probably should have stuck to one fandom. Eh, it ended up being mostly CSIverse anyway]
"One True Pairing" ship: Hm. It changes every so often, but at the moment, I think it's Horatio/Marisol (CSI Miami). I don't know why, it just makes me happy every time I think about it. Provided I don't think about its end.
"One True Threesome" ship: Threesomes should not exist. Anywhere. Ever.Though I sometimes think Jack/Kate/Sawyer would solve a hell of a lot of problems in the Lost fandom.
"Canon" ship: Uh, so many, since I rarely ship anything outside of it. And my favorite(s) rotate on an almost weekly basis, but those currently ruling my daydreams are:
-Grissom/Sara (CSI)
-Mac/Peyton (CSI:NY)
-Abby/Luka (ER)
-Danny/Elena (Without a Trace)
"Not quite canon but should be" ship: Tony/Ziva (NCIS). OBVIOUSLY. Sheep has come up with several ways in which that works out. Failing that, Horatio/Yelina (CSIM), which was my second choice for an OTP.
"If this happens I'll stab my eyes out with a spork" ship: Ryan/Natalia (CSIM). There is no chemistry there. At all. And it's not just because I hate her, since I rather liked her with Delko.
Also, Claire/Locke (Lost). I know it won't ever happen, but it goes on in fic, even though JFC he looks old enough to be her grandfather.
"You are one sick bastard" ship: I actually had a bit of fun pondering which slash ship I found most unsettling. As much as Flack slash makes me shudder, I think Horatio/Mac (CSI Miami/NY) is worse, as the mere flash of a mention caused me to squeal and curl up in a ball, crying tears of blood.
Don/Charlie (Numb3rs) is a veryclose second.
"I'm one sick bastard" ship: It's a point of pride that I have no sick-bastard ships. (Stop judging my OTP. And/or icon)
"I dabble a little" ship: Sara/Greg (CSI). In a strictly AU context, you understand, or at the very least pre-season 6, but I do think they're quite as good as Sara & Grissom.
"It's like a car crash" ship: Derek/Meredith (Grey's Anatomy). They're sort of fascinating the way their relationship keeps going up in flames, and yet they continue to circle back around and end up together.
"Tickles my fancy but not sold quite yet" ship: Nick/Sara (CSI). They have a lot in common; there's nothing inherently squicky and some people can pull it off, but I have a hard time feeling a lot of spark between them. They're better in a brother/sister sort of friendship.
"Makes no canon sense but why the hell not" ship: Horatio/Calleigh (CSIM). I cannot see any viable way in which they could end up together by this point on the show, but damn, they have a whole fanfic site devoted to them for a reason.
"Everyone else loves it but I just don't feel it" ship: Addison/Mark, Addison/Alex (Grey's Anatomy). I just...I don't get the allure of either one. Both men are such self-absorbed jerks. And not even slightly attractive.
"When all is said and done" ship: Mulder and Scully still set the standard.
scsquidsnaps[it occurs to me, after the fact, that I probably should have stuck to one fandom. Eh, it ended up being mostly CSIverse anyway]
"One True Pairing" ship: Hm. It changes every so often, but at the moment, I think it's Horatio/Marisol (CSI Miami). I don't know why, it just makes me happy every time I think about it. Provided I don't think about its end.
"One True Threesome" ship: Threesomes should not exist. Anywhere. Ever.
"Canon" ship: Uh, so many, since I rarely ship anything outside of it. And my favorite(s) rotate on an almost weekly basis, but those currently ruling my daydreams are:
-Grissom/Sara (CSI)
-Mac/Peyton (CSI:NY)
-Abby/Luka (ER)
-Danny/Elena (Without a Trace)
"Not quite canon but should be" ship: Tony/Ziva (NCIS). OBVIOUSLY. Sheep has come up with several ways in which that works out. Failing that, Horatio/Yelina (CSIM), which was my second choice for an OTP.
"If this happens I'll stab my eyes out with a spork" ship: Ryan/Natalia (CSIM). There is no chemistry there. At all. And it's not just because I hate her, since I rather liked her with Delko.
Also, Claire/Locke (Lost). I know it won't ever happen, but it goes on in fic, even though JFC he looks old enough to be her grandfather.
"You are one sick bastard" ship: I actually had a bit of fun pondering which slash ship I found most unsettling. As much as Flack slash makes me shudder, I think Horatio/Mac (CSI Miami/NY) is worse, as the mere flash of a mention caused me to squeal and curl up in a ball, crying tears of blood.
Don/Charlie (Numb3rs) is a veryclose second.
"I'm one sick bastard" ship: It's a point of pride that I have no sick-bastard ships. (Stop judging my OTP. And/or icon)
"I dabble a little" ship: Sara/Greg (CSI). In a strictly AU context, you understand, or at the very least pre-season 6, but I do think they're quite as good as Sara & Grissom.
"It's like a car crash" ship: Derek/Meredith (Grey's Anatomy). They're sort of fascinating the way their relationship keeps going up in flames, and yet they continue to circle back around and end up together.
"Tickles my fancy but not sold quite yet" ship: Nick/Sara (CSI). They have a lot in common; there's nothing inherently squicky and some people can pull it off, but I have a hard time feeling a lot of spark between them. They're better in a brother/sister sort of friendship.
"Makes no canon sense but why the hell not" ship: Horatio/Calleigh (CSIM). I cannot see any viable way in which they could end up together by this point on the show, but damn, they have a whole fanfic site devoted to them for a reason.
"Everyone else loves it but I just don't feel it" ship: Addison/Mark, Addison/Alex (Grey's Anatomy). I just...I don't get the allure of either one. Both men are such self-absorbed jerks. And not even slightly attractive.
"When all is said and done" ship: Mulder and Scully still set the standard.
