CSI: Boon or Bane?

Before we begin, I have a question. How and why is it December already? Ok, on to today's blather.
I love CSI. I might even go so far as to say I'm addicted to it. Whenever I find myself in front of the TV I check to see if there's an episode on. And there usually is, it's getting to be almost like Law & Order like that. I like the original in Las Vegas, and the new one in New York but I'm not a big fan of the Miami version. Something about that red-headed guy really annoys me. Anyway, I was watching the new episode of CSI: New York last night and it struck me that aside from being a cool and entertaining show it might actually be useful in improving the effectiveness of our judicial system. Millions of people watch CSI, and other shows like it, and all those people are potential jurors in some sort of criminal case someday. So I reasoned: If a viewer does end up on a jury someday they may be less susceptible to the slick talk and misdirection presented by the attorneys and be more focused on the evidence itself, as Dr. Gil Grissom has taught us to do. That's a good thing, right? But then it occurred to me that, while these shows do give us a small taste of the science that's involved in Forensic Science, it is by no means a comprehensive education on the subject. However, due to the need to feel intelligent and important that many people have, many viewers will take this small taste of Forensic science and think they are masters of the field, thereby drawing erroneous conclusions from any evidence that is presented to them. Then it occurred to me that slick talking, misdirecting attorneys have probably already thought of this and might build a presentation that caters to these jurors whose heads are full of Prime-time Pseudo-Science. They could present their evidence in such a way that it would seem credible to those of us who have watched too much CSI, but might not actually make any real sense at all. CSI has also taught us that "Expert" testimony, as it relates to scientific evidence, is often unreliable (unless presented by Dr. Grissom himself), once again leaving jurors to draw their own conclusions, accurate or not. In which case CSI might actually be detrimental to our judicial system, which is completely opposite to the first idea I had. So then I realized that I had confused myself by coming up with all these conflicting ideas and I didn't really know what to think about the whole thing anymore. So I thought I'd just let you guys decide for yourselves. Feel free to post a comment below if you'd like to share your thoughts on the matter. Ok, go decide.