Get in touch with your inner Gil Grissom

CBS Broadcasting, Entertainment AB Funding

Find out how the victim died at the CSI: The Experience autopsy lab.

By Rob Lovitt, msnbc.com contributor

Spin-offs: They?re not just for television shows anymore.

Just as the popular Las Vegas?based police procedural ?CSI: Crime Scene Investigation? has given rise to ?CSI: NY? and ?CSI: Miami,? the interactive exhibit based on the popular franchise is hitting the road.

On Tuesday, touring versions of CSI: The Experience will open at Discovery Times Square?in New York and at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

Combining forensic science and popular entertainment, the attractions will invite would-be CSIs to answer the age-old question: ?Whoooo are you, who-who, who-who??

?Forensic science is a broad and interdisciplinary field that people find appealing,? said Christoph Rahofer, president and CEO of EMS ? Event Marketing Service GmbH, which organizes the show in conjunction with CBS Consumer Products. ?People like to figure things out; it?s very much like solving a puzzle.?

CBS Broadcasting, Entertainment AB Funding

At CSI: The Experience, this is the "Who Got Served?" crime scene for investigation.

Or, in this case, puzzles. As in the permanent attraction that debuted at the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas in 2009, the new exhibits present visitors with one of three gruesome scenarios ? a skeleton in the desert, a dead woman in an alley or a car crashed into a house ? and invite them to collect evidence, evaluate blood-spatter patterns, etc., to solve the crime.

Along the way, they?re guided by Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger), Nick Stokes (George Eads) and other CSI cast members who offer advice via video monitors. After gathering evidence at the scene, visitors then analyze it in the lab before confronting what may be the scariest part of the exhibit: presenting their analysis to the quirky and enigmatic Gil Grissom himself.

As the man likes to say, ?Remember, the dead can?t speak for themselves. Listen to what the evidence is saying.?

Specific crime scenes aside, the evidence already suggests the attractions will draw eager crowds. According to Rahofer, some 300,000 people have visited the attraction in Las Vegas and 2 million have experienced previous versions of the touring show.

Cold corpses, it seems, are a hot commodity. ?You can turn on just about any channel these days and find ?Forensic Files,? ?NCIS? and other shows that bring in forensic science,? said Ronald Singer, technical and administrative director of the Tarrant County (Texas) Medical Examiner?s Office and an advisor to the exhibit.

For Singer, the exhibit?s true value is education, not entertainment: ?To a lot of people, science is a dry and dull subject,? he told msnbc.com. ?But when people see it in a real-life application like this, it shows that science has a real place in the world.?

Of course, so does entertainment, which may explain why Gil Grissom still anchors the exhibit, even though he?s been succeeded on the show by Ray Langston (Laurence Fishburne) and, in the current season, D.B. Russell (Ted Danson).

?When you hear the Who song, William Petersen just pops into your brain,? said Rahofer. ?He may just be doing guest appearances, but he?s still Mr. CSI.?

More stories you might like:

Rob Lovitt is a longtime travel writer who still believes the journey is as important as the destination. Follow him at Twitter.

Source: http://overheadbin.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/09/29/8041745-get-in-touch-with-your-inner-gil-grissom

monterrey mexico viola viola lita ford lita ford new york city hurricane unclaimed money