Guest Blog by EJ Lawrence: Why NCIS is Better than CSI…

I'd like to introduce our guest blogger, EJ Lawrence. EJ is a Forensic Scientist who specializes in DNA. I wrote a blog a few weeks ago about fun people I meet at Starbucks and she's one of the best.








Here's a picture of EJ with David McCallum who plays Ducky in NCIS, she's the one on the left.
























Like anyone who has worked in a field long enough knows, watching a dramatization of that field on TV is perilous at best. More often than not it leads to copious amounts of screaming at the characters and their actions. My husband has flat out forbidden me from watching anything on the History or Discovery channel relating to Ancient Egypt while he is home. More recently, this also applies to Forensic Science. If it documents the process of a real life case, it is good to go, but I am incredibly wary of any dramatization. The multitudes of TV shows — CSI, Bones, Cold Case, NCIS, Body of Evidence — have even created a phenomenon within the field lovingly referred to as “The CSI Effect.” Jurors are now expecting lots of evidence and lots of science, and God forbid if there isn’t DNA. But if truth be told, some shows are better than others, and I am a huge fan of NCIS. So here is why NCIS beats the pants off of CSI…

1. Do you really believe that we all work in darkened rooms, back-lit in red or blue?

This is probably the most abused of the absurd stylistic choices made by the production crews. I mean seriously, I would like to keep all my fingers attached to my body. And if I had to cut and sand bone fragments with a Dremel in the near dark, I know I would be missing some digits. Over the last ten years, I have been filmed by the History Channel and the Pentagon Channel for specials on the DNA identifications of US Service-members, and I swear, every time, I have been asked to turn the lights off so it would look more like CSI. This is only slightly more annoying than being asked to add dye to my reagents so that the viewers can see what is in all my tubes. It really isn’t that interesting folks. I am adding a clear liquid to other clear liquid. Don’t get me wrong, it does LOOK cool. It just isn’t always practical.

+1 point to NCIS, for being able to see what they’re doing.

2. Please don’t eat in here.

Anything that goes into a laboratory has to be treated as a biohazard, or potentially containing blood borne pathogens. Abby, I love you, I really do. But the Caf-POW has got to go. That is why you have a separate office. And that one episode where you stored your lunch in the refrigerator labeled biohazard, full of chemicals, and gasp, samples… you should be glad that you are still alive. There are enough things that smell like food in the laboratory, that you don’t need to add actual food to the equation. For example, when you sand bone with a Dremel tool and then grind it to a powder, it smells like Fritos Corn Chips. I personally will never eat them again. Even the thought disgusts me, though I do have colleagues who crave them after working in the bone sanding lab.

+1 point to CSI, for following common sense regarding food.





3. Can I have that DNA result to go please?

One of the most difficult things to do when working in the television, or even novel medium, in regards to Forensic Science, is compressing time. Solving every mystery within a 30-60 minute time frame is difficult enough, but many of the scientific tests take much longer than portrayed. Sometimes by days or even weeks. DNA testing is frequently one that is put on the chopping block with results going out just as fast as samples come in, regardless of sample quality or laboratory restrictions. For the most part NCIS sticks to a 12 hour window for turn around, which is theoretically possible. The shortest possible time for DNA results, where I am doing nothing else, is 8 hours, and that is for nuclear DNA. Mitochondrial DNA? High quality is 3 days to a week. If it’s low quality, dried skeletal remains… let’s just say this: I’ve had a single case on my desk that took 1 year 2 months to get results from. Painfully slow.

+1 point to NCIS, for being at least theoretically possible in their DNA turnaround time.

4. No, it’s just me, myself, and I.

Forensic Science is incredibly compartmentalized. You specialize in one type of testing, and that is pretty much all you do. There are Crime Scene Investigators that collect the evidence, Fingerprint experts, DNA Analysts, Ballistics Experts, Blood Spatter Experts, Engineers, Toxicologists, and then the detectives that investigate the cases. Cross training is almost unheard of, though there could be a lab out there where someone has switched disciplines. It remains the exception, instead of the rule. And while CSI is woefully short on the number of people it would actually take to run a laboratory of that size, NCIS has only Abby.

+1 point to CSI, for having the disciplines separated, at least a little.




5. You like my 5-inch black sexy heels?

This cracks me up. Every time. I like shoes, especially heels. Who doesn’t? I have even worn some awesomely sexy, super high heels to work. And I have also cursed the day that I bought said shoes when I was standing in them for 4 hours straight because I forgot I needed to sand and grind some bones for a priority extraction. Sneakers are essential. Right behind PPE (Personal Protective Equipment). Which includes the lab coats, goggles, sleeves, gloves, and masks that we wear while working in the lab. I pretty much live in jeans. If I even think about wearing something nice to work, inevitably it leaves with a bleach spot on it somewhere. I ruin more nice clothes that way than any other. I basically bathe in bleach with the amounts that get used daily.

+1 point to NCIS for Abby wearing more sensible shoes.

(I know you are laughing at this, because really Abby’s choice of shoes are seriously out there, but take a closer look. While they might be ridiculous platforms, her actual feet are almost flat every time. You could stand in them for hours.)

6. I love Abby.

I mean, that should be a criteria in and of itself. Pauley Perrette is an amazing individual. She also possesses a Masters of Forensic Science from Pace University in NYC. She is actually qualified to get a job within the field. And that is so wickedly cool.

+1 point to NCIS, for Abby, because she’s Abby.




7. No one will ever know…

When a TV show gets the science wrong, sometimes it is spectacularly wrong. During Season 9 Episode 4 of NCIS, entitled “Enemy on the Hill,” Abby volunteers to donate a kidney and uncovers, due to her Mitochondrial DNA, she has a mysterious new brother. Now, Mitochondrial DNA is my specialty. I have worked with it for just over ten years now. I will also confess that I didn’t even see this particular episode, but jeez Louise, my co-workers were spitting fire the next day. Mitochondrial DNA is a familial DNA passed from mother to her children, regardless of gender. But there are many limitations. One of the biggest ones is that 7% of the Caucasian population has the exact same sequence. Think of Last Names. Just because you are a Jones or a Smith, doesn’t mean that all Jones and Smiths are related. And while CSI exploits every possible DNA rare exception, they are legitimate exceptions.

+1 point to CSI, just because that episode was so epically bad.

8. Let’s just search the Military’s DNA database.

This is a very common misunderstanding that is not limited to television. I have fielded many phone calls from investigators around the country asking this very question. They think their suspect/victim was military; they have a blood sample; can they run their results against our database? I really hate to burst everyone’s bubble on this. But there is no database. We maintain bloodstain cards for each of our active duty Service-members, but we don’t actually process them unless there is a reason to. And that reason? They are suspected of being KIA and we need to identify their remains to be returned to their families. So anyone who ends up in our system with their card being processed, they are deceased. Though it is so much better for solving crimes in our 30-60 minute window if we can search a non-existent database. NCIS was really good at maintaining that distinction until somewhere in the 3rd or 4th season, where the database was just suddenly there and available. I get it. It’s fake. But I get it.

+1 to NCIS, for being truthful on the military DNA database for a few seasons.

So there we have it; why I think NCIS is better than CSI. A lot of the choices are necessary for the medium that the stories are presented in. And I have wrestled with those same problems. Can I have DNA results back when I need them to move my story forward at the needed moment, or am I messing around with my own field for the sake of the story line? It is a very thin line to walk and every choice makes a difference. I typically write in a mixed genre, what I have begun calling Paranormal Forensics, or mysteries/crimes heavy on the forensic sciences but possessing many of the coolest people and creatures out of mythology. And there have been times were I had to go back into my story’s time-line and add an extra day, solely so that I wouldn’t be asking for DNA results in 3 hours… 24 hours is much easier to explain. At least to myself.


This is what happens when Forensic Scientists get bored.


So what is your favorite Forensic show, and why?