(no subject)

[ivyfic]

I was watching a CSI:NY episode last night. Now I know they don't film in New York, but they had a sequence with a run away subway train. It's a 3 train, and they manage to stop it at 33rd Street. A number 1, there's no 33rd Street stop on the 3 line. There's a 34th Street stop. Which, okay, maybe they were looking at the sign for one of the exits, but the sign for 33rd Street was the wrong font and color for the NY city subways, and the subway map they showed had the wrong colors. And the subway station they used looked nothing like the Penn Station 1/2/3 stop, which has a unique configuration. But even if I forgive them all of that, every time they showed the emblem on the 3 train, it was yellow. Like nails on a chalkboard to me. How hard is it to google the NYC subways?

Comments

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Welcome to my every gripe about Heroes's issues with New York space. If you're going to film it in California, SET IT IN CALIFORNIA.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

To me it's more ostentatiously awful, because there are a number of police procedurals already set in New York that are actually filmed here. It's not just that they film it somewhere else, I have no problem with SoCal standing in for Vegas, for example. It's more like CSI:NY is written by people who've never actually been to New York. They set things in stereotypical New York settings far more than the Law & Orders--like Times Square or on subways. I've seen a half dozen episodes of CSI:NY and two have involved subways. I can think of...one?...L&O episode that had one scene on a subway. They have a character with a thick accent, but they don't seem to get the New Yorker frame of mind, like that any native will avoid going through Times Square at all costs.

Getting the subway color wrong, though... At first, I couldn't even process what line it was. It's like seeing the word red written in yellow. And then it was like wait a minute...there's no 33rd Street station...and the station at 34th looks nothing like that... I suppose I shouldn't nitpick. The episode was plot-hole-icious already. I think that's why they air it at 1AM.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It's more like CSI:NY is written by people who've never actually been to New York

Yeah, Heroes writers.

Getting the subway color wrong, though... At first, I couldn't even process what line it was. It's like seeing the word red written in yellow. And then it was like wait a minute...there's no 33rd Street station...and the station at 34th looks nothing like that... I suppose I shouldn't nitpick. The episode was plot-hole-icious already. I think that's why they air it at 1AM.

Anyone who doesn't know the colors doesn't live here. I remember my brother and his girlfriend being impressed when I could identify the 1/2/3 line from a distance on a map (in a pizza shop in Hawai'i of all places). I blinked at them. "It's red, duh." Not something people get unless they've spent more than a week here.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I'm watching another ep. This time they got the color of the 1/2/3 line right, but they show the 76th Street stop. There is no 76th Street stop. How freaking hard is it to check these things?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

You should write them a letter:

Dear CSI:NY writers,

It's called www.mta.info. You're welcome.

Signed,
Ivy

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

What they don't seem to get is that New Yorkers just know the New York subway system. I may not know the outer boroughs, but I know most of the Manhattan lines. What is it--80% of New Yorkers use the subway every day? There are two New York conversations--apartment rents, and how to get from here to there by subway. It's not an insignificant part of life here. Moving around the subway lines and changing the colors is like moving the beltway in DC.

Also, just after they showed a shooting at a bodega by the 76th St 1/2/3 stop--which is not a crime-ridden area--a character takes a "shortcut" home through an alley on 75th Street, which there aren't any of in Manhattan. There is no shortcut home, unless he's riding his bike through a building. You've gotta be kidding me. And in broad daylight, around there, a kid would not bleed to death without several dozen people walking by. Not to mention that the cop is supposed to be living in a low rent apartment around there...and that's an expensive neighborhood. AUGH! WHY MUST THEY DO THIS? It's freaking insulting.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

They have no comprehension of how the east coast works, much less New York specifically, that's why. It's just a totally different mindset. If I were to write about like in Southern California, I'm sure I'd get it wrong to. But nobody is paying LOTS OF MONEY to do any research about it. That's the difference.