Fans of sitcoms and procedural crime drama were treated this week to a cross over double act with a difference featuring CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (8:30pm, Sunday 29th June, Channel Nine) and Two and a Half Men (Tuesday, 8:30pm, 1 July, Channel Nine).

So was this stunt TV or was it an an original cross over concept that breathed fresh life into two tired television genres? Today The Incomplete Gamer stopped writing about Tivo long enough to pick up the peanut remote and find out for ourselves.

What makes this crossing over concept original was that (mercifully) none of the characters of either show actually crossed over. As easy as it might have been to send Charlie Harper (Charlie Sheen) to Vegas on a date with a stripper, it was the writers instead who crossed over.

First out of the blocks on Sunday was CSI. The episode titled “Two and a Half Deaths” was written by the creators of Two and a Half Men, Chuck Lorre and Lee Aronsohn.

This time around the CSI Team are investigating the death of Annabelle, a diva sitcom star played by Katey Sagal. With the possible exception of the rubber chicken Grisham delicately extracts from Annabelle’s mouth, there are only a few subtle clues that this isn’t your average CSI episode. A network suit strolling the corridors of the CSI labs remarks “Beautiful people doing high tech police work. There might be a series in this” Later, when discussing the sitcom ‘Two and a Half Men’ a member of Annabelle’s writing staff remarks, “I’d rather sleep with Annabelle than write that crap.”

Behind the scenes of the cross over episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,

If you were none the wiser, there is really nothing distinguishing in the writing or the direction to single this episode out as being unique or special. It does pass muster as a decent CSI episode and as such is a credit to the creative adaptability of the Two and a Half Men creators, Chuck Lorre and Lee Aronsohn.

The second part of the crossover, the Two and a Half Men episode called “Fish in a Drawer,” screened Tuesday night. Written by CSI writers Sarah Goldfinger and Evan Dunsky and based on a story by CSI executive producers Carol Mendelsohn an
d Naren Shankar, this episode revolves around the mysterious death at the home of Charlie Harper, played by Charlie Sheen.

From the minute the opening CSI theme music plays “Who…Are You..Men Men.., Men Men,” it’s clear that the CSI crew have pulled out all stops to milk the CSI crossover concept for all its worth. Unlike the CSI episode, there is no mistaking this episode. All the CSI trademarks are on display front and centre; the flash backs (the dead butterflies and the clown on the bed were our favourites), the forensics, the interrogations, the CSI visual conventions (the cgi microscopic camera work. But throughout, the humour remains classic Two and a Half Men. When checking Charlie’s bedroom for semen using the ultra violet light, one of the Crime Scene Investigators remarks, “It’s like a Jackson Pollack painting.”

Hit or miss. For once a TV network managed to deliver a cross over concept that wasn’t corny. The Networks deal the crossover card at ratings time and as a rule these special episodes result in a positive ratings spike. Yet ratings aside, at best they leave us disappointed and at worst cringing in their wake. Even when TV shows are set in the same city, it is rare that they ever share a similar tone, those shadings of light and dark that make each shows universe both unique and believable. Which is why, for the most part when your favourite TV character stumbles onto the set of that ‘other show’ the jarring and sense of displacement is so great that you, the viewer are unable to suspend your disbelief.

For our money, The Two and a Half Men episode is our pick of the two. The CSI episode just doesn’t shine as brightly. Perhaps because CSI is already adept at weaving the occasionally humorous element into it’s stories, perhaps we’re getting tired of procedural crime dramas, or perhaps, Quentin Tarantino simply raised the bar too high when he directed the CSI episode Grave Digger in 2005.

The Incomplete Gamer loves Tivo; unashamedly, unreservedly, absolutely. Even when the hard drive gremlin turns her pretty features a nasty shade of ‘Green Screen of Death’, and she goes into an endless reboot loop, taking three months worth of Scrubs, Law & Order and Wilfred to the Tivo grave.

Tivo’s built a reputation on three features. It boasts, what is quite possibly the world’s most user-friendly interface. Not only is the UI intuitive, it’s incredibly powerful as well. Combine those features with a reputation for reliability and you have one solid Hard Disc Recorder.

For those of us outside the US, the Tivo even comes complete with a certain geeky cachet. Tivo’s not officially sold or supported in Australia, but thanks to the incredible efforts of the local OzTivo community, it’s possible to import a used, Series 1 Tivo, and with a bit of tweaking, and the purchase of an ethernet card and external tuner source, be up and running relatively painlessly. The upside of being an Aussie – the Tivo community provide free weekly TV listings – the raw data that transform the Tivo into an intelligent servant, faithfully recording your favourite telly 24/7. The downside; only the Series 1 Tivo’s will work in Oz. Tivo locked subsequent generation of the units down. The Series 1 was quite the HDD Recorder back in 2001, but today faces off against High Definition competition, both in the form of the Series 3 Tivo as well as other dual-tuner wielding offerings from almost all major AV manufacturers.

In Australia, if you are after a High Def HDD recorder, with a full 7 day a week subscription service then your commercial alternatives are limited. There’s the Dual Tuner High-definition Topfield HDD Recorder or a Media Centre PC, coupled with the ICE TV subscription service. Three drawbacks; it’s a much more expensive proposition. You’ll pay twice as much for the Topfield, or even more for a decent Media Centre PC and then you’ll also have to pay for the monthly TV listing.

Lack of HD not withstanding, the Tivo’s trump card is its geekiness. Remember, there’s no warranty, and no real after sales support. While the Tivo does get a good rap for reliability, these are seven year old units, and basically just pc’s that are always on and always recording. The strong OzTivo community will go out of their way to help you but if you’re considering buying a Tivo, you really need to be prepared to take to it with a torx screwdriver at least once and possibly more often, and therein lies the true joy of Tivo ownership; ripping out the hard drives and re-imaging, replacing a fan that’s finally bit the bullet, not to mention operating on your own PC so as to re-image and test the drives.

Here at Incomplete Gamer HQ, we’ve re-imaged our Tivo’s two 300 gig Samsung hard drives more times than we care to remember. Shortly after its arrival, our Tivo developed a nasty habit of calling time on proceedings after reaching 20 per cent capacity. We originally hoped an upgrade to the latest os would solve the problem, but last week we reluctantly came to the conclusion that one of the two Samsung drives had a bad sector. Testing the drives and completing a low-level format on both drives was the only way forward.

So it was off to Samsung, in search of a HDD utility. If you have Samsung drives then you’ll need a program with the sexy moniker of Hutil. Next up, you’ll need to make a bootable disc. For those that have forgotten or perhaps never made one, you’ll find the instructions here. You can make a CD or floppy disc depending on your PC’s hardware, but we’d recommend a floppy disc, if only because the size of the Dos based Hutil program is very small.

Both drives passed all tests with flying colours (not a bad sector to be found) so there was nothing left to do but run a low level format on both drives. There’s a reason why the program warns you that it may take a while to complete. Try plus twelve hours.

Now the Tivo is back in its rightful place in the Incomplete Gamer Screening Lounge, and for good measure, we’ve swapped the slave and the master drives so even if the hard drive problem’s not fixed, the Tivo should fill to at least 50 per cent capacity (350 hours) without crashing.

Our Tivo’s the Incomplete Gamer’s best friend, just quietly going about it’s business, Muppets from Space one day, Two and a Half Men the next, a Two and a Half Men episode today, and Life on Mars on Sunday. We can safely indulge in the latest video gaming gem, safe in the knowledge that the Tivo has our back.