“The Office” and “30 Rock” better watch out. There’s a chance that “CSI” (8 p.m., WBBM-Ch. 2) could be the funniest show airing Thursday.
Sure, the crime-scene techs often mutter sarcastic asides as they do their jobs, but “CSI” isn’t known as a laugh riot. Yet Thursday’s outing, which concerns lab techs Hodges (Wallace Langham) and Wendy (Liz Vassey) finding a body at a sci-fi convention, is so lighthearted and fun that it will probably amuse “CSI” fans who aren’t necessarily interested in nerd culture.
But for the geeks out there, especially fans of “Star Trek” and “Battlestar Galactica,” Thursday’s “CSI” is required viewing — there are in-jokes large and small for followers of those franchises (“Battlestar” executive producer Ronald D. Moore even shows up for a brief cameo). I had to stop the advance DVD once because I was laughing so hard at a “Battlestar”-related joke.
It turns out both Hodges and Wendy are fans of the vintage space opera “Astro Quest,” and they run into each other at a convention dedicated to the show. Hodges has been nursing a crush on Wendy, and that crush blooms into something more when he finds out that she loves his favorite TV show.
The writing credits for the episode, “A Space Oddity,” include Bradley Thompson, David Weddle and Naren Shankar. The first two wrote for “Battlestar Galactica” and “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” and Shankar penned scripts for “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Star Trek: Voyager,” among other genre shows. Director Michael Nankin has helmed many episodes of “Battlestar” and does a typically excellent job here. The vintage “Astro Quest” sequences — which feature DayGlo colors, lumpy Styrofoam rocks, flat lighting and static camera angles — are so perfect that you expect William Shatner to arrive and start hamming it up.
These people know whereof they mock, and they care enough to get dozens of details exactly right: Wendy complains that “Astro Quest’s” female characters are underwritten; a media-studies professor (played by Kate Vernon from “Battlestar”) sucks all the fun out of the show by overanalyzing it; and Hodges’ fantasies about starring in “Astro Quest” involve, not surprisingly, scantily clad space concubines.
Amid all the geeky details, there are stories being told. There is a murder to solve, and there’s a message quietly threaded through the episode as well — that maybe “Astro Quest’s” ideal future isn’t such a bad thing to work toward.
To say more would give away too many delightful surprises. All I can say to those who made “A Space Oddity” so enjoyable is this: Live long and prosper.
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moryan@tribune.com
For more on this episode, go to chicagotribune.com/watcher
