Telgenhoff: Overall I'd Give 'Em A B+

Dr. Gary Telgenhoff knows it's just television.

"Let's face it. It's Hollywood, and nothing's going to get in the way of a good story," Telgenhoff said at Millersville University in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Telgenhoff is a real-life medical examiner in Las Vegas. He also acts as a consultant for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

"They'll write a scenario or something, and they'll want to know if this could happen or how could it happen better," Telgenhoff said, explaining his role in creating CSI. In some cases, the scenarios are completely unbelievable, such as the time the writers included a veterinarian doing an autopsy on a human. Telgenhoff put the brakes on that idea before it made it to the screen. "I said please don't do that it's against the law. Nobody will believe it don't do it," he said.

Sometimes, however, the writers take creative licence even when the result isn't entirely realistic. The machine that provides DNA results almost instantaneously is completely fake, for example. But the biggest flaw in the show is the premise itself: forensic scientists solving crimes. "The CSI is the lowest person on the totem pole," Telgenhoff explained. "They're the ones that collect the evidence." However, despite the fact that CSI is not always realistic, Telgenhoff said that it is still pretty close. "Overall I'd give 'em a B+," he said, "maybe a minus."

The original article was posted at WHP CBS 21 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

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