CSI: Academia

[As the episode begins, we see a LITTLE PROFESSOR, frantically covering the bookcases in her department office with plastic.  Water drips ominously from the ceiling, onto a stack of as-yet unread MA theses, bluebooks, and term papers.]

LITTLE PROFESSOR: Noooo! This is a tragedy of apocalyptic proportions! How will I ever grade the final assignments? [Suddenly struck by a cheerful thought] Wait--does this mean that I don't have to grade the final assignments?

[The camera pans away, moving to the windows next to the LITTLE PROFESSOR's desk.  Off-camera, we hear a thump, then a scuffle, then...silence.  Roll opening credits.]

VOICEOVER: Whoooo are we? Who-oo, who-oo?

ANOTHER VOICE: What an interesting question! Are you suggesting that subjectivity is always already constructed in the plural, emerging as it does in the exchange between Self and Other?

[The music jangles awkwardly to a halt.]

ANOTHER VOICE: Or, uh, not.

[We are back in the LITTLE PROFESSOR's office.  CSIs SARA and CATHERINE are crawling about on the floor, examining a suspicious trail of blue ink spots.  CAPT. BRASS is supervising them.]

SARA: Why are we in upstate New York, exactly? I miss the tacky neon signs and near-naked showgirls.

BRASS: The producers figured that since they weren't being realistic anyway--you know, with all the CSIs acting like police officers and such--they might as well ignore the whole question of jurisdiction. 

CATHERINE: Fine, but couldn't they have ignored that question in, say, Manhattan? We could have knocked back a few drinks with Gary Sinise! I'm such a fan...

BRASS [desperately averting his eyes from CATHERINE's unprofessional display of cleavage]: I hear tell that this part of the world is much more exotic than Manhattan.  Anyway, this missing person, the, ah, "Little Professor," has already been investigated by shows from two different networks, so some producer figured it was time to put CBS' oar in. 

SARA [who has been crawling around under the desk]: This small person ought to be investigated.  Look at the state of this floor!  Papers everywhere! Wait--I think I've found a clue...Where's the zoom?

[The camera zooms in with the requisite "whoosh" sound effect. We see a mysterious scrap of paper, scribbled over in a completely illegible mix of print and cursive.  The ink is blue.]

SARA: I'll have you know that "the ink is blue" was supposed to be my line. [Glaring in the vague direction of the ceiling] Because it's not like it would endanger the cause of world peace to give me a few random lines of dialogue!

CATHERINE: Let's send it to the lab.  After all, Hodges needs to do something to justify his new "special guest star" status. 

[We cut to Las Vegas and the autopsy room.  The coroner, DOC ROBBINS, and his assistant, DAVE, are puzzling over a headless body.]

DOC ROBBINS: This is really strange.  There's no head, but there's also no wound.  No blood, no nothing.  Dave, did you find anything?

DAVE: Well, there are some scratches, but I think those come might come from a cat.  And there are paper cuts on the fingers.  Nothing that explains the missing head, though.

DOC ROBBINS: Maybe there's a clue inside the body--

[DOC ROBBINS begins to cut--but the body suddenly jerks upright, scattering tools and coroners to the four corners of the room.]

DOC ROBBINS and DAVE: A zombie! Help!

HEADLESS BODY: Oh, for crying out loud! I'm acephalous, not decapitated.  Where the hell did you put my clothes?!

[DAVE points wordlessly to a pile of clothes at the far end of the room.  The HEADLESS BODY starts putting them on, muttering to himself all the while.]

HEADLESS BODY: ...silly fools...would never have happened on Buffy...Foucault off, already...blasted dissertation research... [Stalks out, still muttering.]

[We cut to HODGES' lab.  NICK, apparently without anything better to do, watches over HODGES' shoulder.]

HODGES: Looks like I got the episode's allotted music montage, so I ran three hundred different tests on this scrap of paper to the accompaniment of some seriously cheesy 80s disco.

NICK: Three hundred?

HODGES: Hey, the jump cuts and fade-outs during the montage really reduced the processing time! So, anyway, the ink belongs to a Pilot G-2 O7 pen--standard issue in English departments--and it's on 20-weight copy paper. 

NICK: Lovely, but have you actually deciphered the writing?

HODGES:  The writing?

NICK [patiently]: Yes.  The writing.  You know, these scribbles that look like a drunken parrot stepped in a bottle of ink and did the mambo with a cockatiel on speed.

HODGES: Oh, that! It's just a fragment.  "Bleak...Death...Sea."  Could be a clue to the kidnapping.

NICK [grimly]: Kidnapping? That sounds like homicide to me.

HODGES: Luckily, there's a ready-made list of suspects available...

[Cut back to upstate New York.  CATHERINE and SARA are checking the bluebooks for blood spatter.]

BRASS: Nick and Hodges think that this tiny teacher ran afoul of one of the 101 most dangerous professors in the United States.  They're faxing over a list right now.

CATHERINE: Another professor? I'd have thought a student would be a more likely suspect. 

SARA: Yeah, this little professor seems to have been one cranky dragon.  [Sentimentally]  I bet Grissom was ever so much nicer to the kids in his seminar--nobody but me knows just what an incredible sweetheart he truly is. [Long, yearning sigh, completely ignored by both BRASS and CATHERINE.]

BRASS: Keep processing the office.  It looks like I've got an interview to conduct.

[Cut to Pennsylvania, where MICHAEL BERUBE is administering a final exam in his American literature seminar.  BRASS enters.]

BRASS: Ho-ho! If it isn't evil incarnate! Everything that's wrong with contemporary academia! A carbuncle on the leftwing professoriate's rump!

STUDENT [sotto voce]: So that explains this damned final.

BERUBE: "A carbuncle..."? Did I skip that insult in Horowitz, or did you actually manage to invent that magisterial example of invective all by your little ol' lonesome?

BRASS: My sixth-grade teacher always said I had a gift for poetry.  But that's not why I'm here.  We believe you know something about the disappearance of the Little Professor.

BERUBE [keeping a straight face]: Well, I can't identify any meta-narrative that would allow me to structure her absence according to a coherent logic of cause-and-effect, but it's possible that I may be able to recuperate her absence within a more local discursive network.

BRASS: Whuh...?!

BERUBE [continuing over him]: It's quite possible that there's a direct connection between her disappearance and the current effects of transnational capitalism on soccer...

BRASS: Transnational capital--wait, you think economic protesters may be involved?

BERUBE: Let me explain.  This shouldn't take too long.

[BRASS, looking dismayed, sits down.  We cut back to upstate New York.]

SARA: You know, if this little professor  was murdered in her office, then you'd expect to see signs of a struggle.  All I'm seeing are signs of excessive bibliophily.*  And a complete inability to organize.  Not like my fuzzy-wuzzy Grissom, no sirree--

CATHERINE [apparently deaf to the "fuzzy-wuzzy" bit]: Are you suggesting that her disappearance might have been staged? Insurance fraud, maybe? Or could she still be in the room? Don't forget, some cops once discovered her buried under a pile of papers.

[Cut back to Pennsylvania.  Eight hours have passed.  BRASS, looking dazed, is nearly toppling out of his seat.]

BERUBE: ...which is why neoliberalism has adversely affected the role of indirect free kicks.

BRASS:  Neowho? What, in the name of all that's Pele, has this got to do with the Little Professor's disappearance?

BERUBE [smiling sweetly]: I was just getting to that.

BRASS: Arrrgh! Look, is there somebody who might be able to give me a brief account of what happened to the woman?

BERUBE [smiling even more sweetly]: Might I suggest John Holbo?

[Back to upstate New York.  SARA and CATHERINE have organized everything into neat piles.]

SARA: Well, if she ever comes back, she'll be able to locate her desk.

[On cue...]

LITTLE PROFESSOR: Holy Thomas Hardy! You've completely destroyed my personal filing system!

CATHERINE [looking disappointed]: You're not dead?

SARA [also looking disappointed]: Or even disappeared?

LITTLE PROFESSOR: Huh? The note said that I would be in New York City for a couple of days.

CATHERINE and SARA: The note?

LITTLE PROFESSOR:  The note.  This note.  On the door.  Printed in red ink and twenty-eight point type.

[They all contemplate the note.]

CATHERINE: Wait--what about the fragment that read, "Bleak...Death...Sea"? Weren't you contemplating suicide? Or homicide?

LITTLE PROFESSOR:  It's part of my book list for the fall semester.  Bleak House, The Life and Death of Harriett Frean, and Wide Sargasso Sea.  [Pause] You were rooting around on my floor? Can you even imagine what's down there? I mean...there's probably a shredded novel about Anne Boleyn, a half-dozen Victorian anti-Catholic sermons, a dilapidated novel by Emily Sarah Holt...

CATHERINE: But somebody reported hearing a "thump" and then a "scuffle."

LITTLE PROFESSOR [shrugging]: I dropped a heavy box of books on the floor, then decided to shove it along the floor to the storage room instead of picking it up again.

SARA: Jeez.  No crime! How totally boring.  Guess we'd better tell Brass. 

[She punches his number into her cell phone.  BRASS answers on the first ring.]

BRASS [sounding terrified]: Please, you've got to help me! This guy keeps threatening me with some deadly weapon called Occam's Razor! And I thought Bérubé was dangerous!

[Fade to black.]

*--Phrase courtesy of Languagehat.