01:00 AM EST on Sunday, January 30, 2005

Who would have thought we could be so entranced by a lab technician peering through a microscope at a strand of hair?

Add an eccentric pathologist carving up corpses, mix in some vivid imagery of a .38-caliber bullet plowing through a vital organ, and you've got yourself a hit TV show.

CBS has discovered that all it has to do is take the initials CSI -- they stand for Crime Scene Investigation -- and add the name of a city. The ratings will come rolling in.

And if one forensics show is good, and three are better, then why not six? Or eight? Or 10?

So there's Cold Case, and Without a Trace and Medical Investigation.

Put the crimes in a military setting, and you've got NCIS. Bring a math genius on board, and it's CBS's Numb3rs. A psychic? Welcome to NBC's Medium.

Why do we love 'em? What's so entertaining about a nerd in a lab coat estimating time of death using the maggots on a decaying corpse?

Strangely enough, these shows work because they comfort us, like warm fuzzy bathrobes on a cold winter morning.

That might seem counter-intuitive. After all, forensic shows revel in graphically demonstrating just about every form of trauma the human body can sustain.

But the underlying message is remarkably heartening.

First of all, if a crime is committed, an entire team of good-looking and intelligent people will drop whatever they're doing, and go right to work on the problem.

Plus, they've got every high-tech gizmo known to man -- and a few that appear to have been stolen off the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

DNA results take about six seconds. Fingerprints match. Odd green fibers are instantly identified as coming from a peculiar polyester blend, manufactured in Malaysia, that was only used in blankets sold between 1993 and 1995 in Canada.

A blanket exactly like the one found in the basement of the victim's vengeful ex-boyfriend! Who visited Toronto in 1994!

Crime solved. In exactly 44 minutes, too, unless we're looking at a rare two-part episode.

Innocent? Not to worry! A lab technician will come marching down the hallway, waving a sheet of paper.

"Bad news," the techie will say. "The DNA's not a match."

Bad news for somebody else, perhaps. You're out the door.

To tell the truth, the lab guys are so good, the equipment so advanced, the people so good-looking -- did I mention that already? -- that it's a wonder anyone even bothers to commit a crime in the first place. The relentless crime scene investigators are bound to find something, no matter how small, no matter how mundane, that will have the perp quivering in the interrogation room before he can say, "I want my lawyer."

Unlike the messy, unpredictable real world, on crime shows technology triumphs and justice is done.

And that's why we watch.

Andy Smith and other Journal arts writers share the At Large column. Reach him by e-mail at asmith [at] projo.com