“Attraction Is Subjective; It Can’t Be Analyzed.”

C.S.I. ran its "chubby chaser" episode last night, "Big Middle," and, naturally it has the members of the Dimensions Weight Board discussing it. The big question: whether a woman who is described as just under 300 pounds could really crush a man if she passes out from a deadly combo of hypertension medication and booze. As more than one boarder points out, the experiment performed by Gil Grissom (William Petersen) to show that the weight on a male body would be enough to kill him was fairly dubious, since the weight they used was on an average-sized female dummy and largely centered in the middle of its torso – and a super-sized woman would have had her weight more widely dispersed. Since the dead fat admirer was shown helping another plus-sized partner onto a hotel room table, it's clear that he had a decent amount of upper body strength, so perhaps the show’s critics have a point.

Given that the show is designed to present us with a series of suspects who all appear to have something to hide, its take on a size acceptance convention didn't strike me as too out of line. The FA victim turns out to be a pretty slimy predatory type – the kind of guy who sees these events as an opportunity to bed women that he otherwise holds in contempt ("He liked doing fat girls, but didn't want to be seen with them," we're told.) – not an unbelievable figure, unfortunately. The SSBBWs depicted on the show were generally either flirtatiously assertive (there's a great comic moment where one of the attendees, played by Lisa Brounstein, thinks Grissom is gay because he doesn't immediately respond to her signals: "Fat girl, gay guy – it's not unheard of!"), struggling with self-esteem or, most likely, both.

We also, of course, get a variety of reactions to the fact that a bunch of provocatively dressed fat women and their admirers even exist: from a piggy comment by a unformed cop (who is chastised by Jorja Fox's outspoken feminist, Sarah Sidle) to curiosity by neophyte criminalist Greg Sanders (Eric Szmanda). Several appealing fat actresses were given film time to show what they can: I especially enjoy the beardless Deb Christoffersen (hadn't realized until I saw without the Carnivále beard that I'd seen her years before, dressed in rubber on N.Y.P.D. Blue) as a convention vender specializing in sexy plus-sized lingerie. Would've been nice if the show had indicated that there were actual FAs out in the world who were much less exploitive than the love-'em-and-leave-'em lothario who snuffs it. But in the world of C.S.I., the point isn't to establish a fair-and-balanced view but to take us into a world where practically anyone could commit murder. . .