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Reader Jeer of the Week: Cold Case Doesn't Add Up
From Roy Herstein in San Francisco...
Jeers to the Nov. 4 episode of Cold Case for thinking we wouldn't do the math. The murder takes place 69 years ago in 1938. All of the major characters are, at best, in their early thirties, which would make all of them over 100 today. Miraculously, they are all still alive and played by actors in their seventies and eighties, like Pa Walton (Ralph Waite) and Seinfeld's Uncle Leo (Len Lesser).
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Nov 9, 2007 4:53 PM
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Great point - although when watching it, the thought never crossed my mind!
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Nov 9, 2007 5:13 PM
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I was willing to overlook the math just because I liked the idea of a case based on War of the Worlds. I did think about it while I was watching, but it didn't take away from my enjoyment of the episode.
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Nov 9, 2007 5:46 PM
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I totally agree! I said the same thing to my mom while watching it. They did the same thing with the episode set in the 20's...apparently they think people can't do simple math.
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Nov 9, 2007 6:14 PM
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Totally agree. I had trouble watching after I did the math. What do these writers think we are... stupid? and, they want more money? Priceless.
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Nov 10, 2007 7:04 AM
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I was bothered by the math, and another thing. 1938 was almost ten years into the depression, and (while I'm not an expert) I think things were getting better by then. All the "we've been struggling for the last couple of years" stuff didn't ring true.
I had a similar problem with the show about the suffragettes. It was set the year before women got the vote, yet in 1919 they were acting like "these shameless hussies," which I think would have been more a 1905 attitude. Not to mention (as someone pointed out after that show) Prohibition had passed.
Much of the joy of watching Cold Case is feeling they're retelling an era. I don't know if I've just been less aware of problems with that, or if the writers are slipping.
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Nov 10, 2007 7:52 AM
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But who says the characters were in their 30s????
that's YOUR assumption, and yours only.
Women got married much younger in those days, so she could still be in her 20s, even early 20s (her son was very young), which puts the other charcters in their late 80s. Utterly possible.
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Nov 10, 2007 8:58 AM
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I don't think there were any assumptions about the ages of the characters. They boy was stated to be eight. Therefore, he was born in 1930. Therefore, if this episode is supposed to be current, he is now 77. Looked pretty good for 77. His father (Ralph Waite) really looked good. He would have to have been somewhere between his middle 90's and over 100. Ditto the taxi dancer. Lookin' good for 95 or more.
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Nov 10, 2007 11:26 AM
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CBS is notorious for making these kinds of errors with age continuity. They don't seem to pay attention to these details - they either don't care or don't think their viewers are smart enough to notice!
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Nov 10, 2007 3:46 PM
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Cold Case has another problem besides continuity errors: The annoying music blasting over so many scenes. They seem to think all they have to do to make scenes set in a previous time believable is play some period songs. Then the sappy montage at the end of the episode is even worse, because it goes on and on.
The other thing about the show that bothers me is the way the detectives always follow the red herrings so easily. It's understandable that we'll get a few misleading impressions as the plot wears on, because if they found the solution easily, the show would only be 20 minutes long. But these are supposed to be good detectives--they fall for the false clues worse than the most gullible viewer, which always leads to a rude, sarcastic grilling of their (erroneous) suspect, which leads to that person's anguished revelation which inevitably exonerates them, which leads to the next shift in the story, which leads......this show is getting as predictable as Without a Trace and House.
One other thing: these cases are supposed to be cold. They've been sitting on the shelf for years, sometimes decades, yet our intrepid team solves them within the hour, without fail.
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Nov 10, 2007 4:01 PM
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I really like Cold Case. I only watch tv for entertainment. It is either entertaining or it is not. I find Cold Case entertaining. I don't analyze it. Before the episode came on I wasn't happy because I thought the guilty party would be dead. I was glad that was not the case. I have to do the math every day with my job. I don't do it when I watch tv.
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Nov 10, 2007 6:58 PM
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I agree with CSLetree. Sometimes it is much more enjoyable to just watch a show and not analyze every detail. Which I guess is why tv is considered mindless entertainment.
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Nov 10, 2007 10:31 PM
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I didn't realize that until I read this...But, then again...maybe I did. I still liked that episode. I will still like Cold Case despite it's faults.
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Nov 10, 2007 10:50 PM
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I understand the annoyance, but it's called "creative license." otherwise all of the cold cases would be from recent decades, which doesn't make for a very interesting show!
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Nov 11, 2007 10:31 AM
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dijimp makes a good case. But I have also had problems with the way Cold Case handles its time periods. There was one episode in which a young African American girl lived in a house operating as a brothel that was occupied by at least five African American women working there. The plot turned on the fact that the girl was the only iterate person in the house.
By my figuring the women had all been born within a couple of years either way of World War One. I thought that it was a real stretch to think that all of them, even working in such circumstances and whatever their ethnic or social backgrounds, were unable to read. The story was uncritical of the women otherwise and I don't think the plot point had malicious origins but at that point in time I think it highly unlikely that everyone in the house would not have at least a minimal education-enough to be able to read and write. One or two maybe, but not all.
Cold Case often fails to make good matches between the actors who play the same caharcter at different ages. I know that certain allowances can be made but most faces do not become as different between one's twenties and one's sixties, for example, as the show often would have us accept.
Cold Case is a show that is often better acted and assembled than it is written. It's still a fairly entertaining show but I think they carry the creative license a little too far at times.
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Nov 12, 2007 2:02 AM
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