North Springs P.D.'s C.S.I. Unit

"North Springs P.D.'s C.S.I. Unit" is the premiere of the sixteenth season of the animated sitcom North Springs. The episode was written by Don Grayman and Rob Farlane, with Farlane serving as director. It premiered on TBS on July 27, 2011.

The episode follows Ben, Philly, Makowski, and Tommy as they star in a television show in which they pretend to be police officers and solve various mysteries and "petty crimes" throughout the town. The episode is a parody of police drama television series, primarily ', ', and the.

Plot
At school one morning, Greg and Tater are walking in the hallway when they stumble upon Arturo Gutierrez's bloody, dismembered corpse. Tater vomits on the corpse, and the screen zooms in extremely close, to the point where the smallest details can be seen clearly. The episode cuts to an -styled opening sequence for a show called North Springs P.D.'s C.S.I. Unit, which stars Tommy Briggs, Philly Lyndon, Conner Makowski, and Ben Sears.

After the intro, detectives Conner MacNobody (Makowski) and Thomas Briggsey (Tommy) arrive at the scene and make obvious statements about Greg's clothing and appearance, such as "brown hair indicates brunette" and "green shirt indicates green-colored top". Tater snaps at the officers for not doing their job, and they immediately arrest him. At the "police station" (Makowski's house), MacNobody and Briggsey attempt to come to a consensus on what to do with Tater. Their conversation comes to a halt when officer Philip Lyndsey (Philly) pushes the guy down on their desk and aims a gun to his head, constantly asking "Do ya wanna live, punk?!" and leaving Tater scared and teary-eyed. Captain Benjamin Shopatsears (Ben) angrily calls Lyndsey into his office to criticize his bad behavior and question whether or not he wants to be a cop or "an aggro pimp". Lyndsey is forced out of the building and told to find out who killed Arturo Gutierrez.

After informally interrogating, harassing, and assaulting Arturo's friends and relatives, the cops come to the conclusion that Tater Totts killed him. MacNobody walks outside and finds Tater standing right outside the Makowskis' home. Tater starts running away, and MacNobody and Briggsey chase him across the neighborhood. But before the officers can do anything to Tater he trips over a rock and falls, breaking his left leg in the process. Shopatsears tells the cops to let him go, and although he broke his left leg, Tater limps away on his right leg instead and promises to get revenge on the cops. He then gives an entire speech about revenge and its "benefits" as fake end credits play, followed by logos for " Movies" (a parody of ) and "XYZMultiversal Television Studio" (a parody of ).

The screen goes black and zooms out of Makowski's laptop. Huddled around it, the boys are watching the video come to an end, and they agree to never let this footage be publicly released. They delete a folder of script drafts, video clips, and video editor files related to the episode, and then smash the laptop. The boys come to Tucker's Pond with a flamethrower and gasoline; they pour the gasoline on the laptop and light it up, tossing it in the water as a melancholy version of the North Springs P.D.'s C.S.I. Unit theme music plays.

Critical reception
eek.net's Morgan Learen gave this episode a D− rating, positively noting its "fairly accurate depiction of your typical cop show" and its "laugh-out-loud ending" but criticizing its "somewhat abrasive references to shows like NCIS and " and "annoying reliance on in-jokes". OEN writer James Causter gave this episode a 5/5 rating for its soundtrack, surreal humor, humorously nonsensical ending, and inclusion of elements from NCIS and ; in a 2020 article, he named it the best North Springs season premiere of all time.

Sextuplet's Shane Adam Parker gave "North Springs P.D.'s C.S.I. Unit" a 7/10, as he liked the references to those shows, but criticized it for its rushed storytelling that "feels like it's trying to squeeze [an] entire movie into one episode, making it a disappointing watch". Media Geek writer Spencer Rickton gave this episode a 4/4 for its "enjoyable satire", "killer" NCIS-style soundtrack, and "NCIS–Law & Order hybrid aesthetic".