By PING’AN JIEDAO

Entertainment Correspondent

SHANGHAI (China Daily Show) — The first season of CSI’s much-anticipated ‘Shanghai’ spin-off has been cancelled, after scriptwriters failed to take into account the East Coast city’s complete absence of crime.

Plotlines involving corruption, sexual harassment and high-end ergotou were shelved after quality-control cadres for the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT) cited an “insufficient suspension of disbelief” for viewers.

The news comes as a blow to fans, who had been hoping for a forensic examination of the infamous metropolis’s seedy underbelly.

Instead, producers were forced to admit that it doesn’t exist.

Initially, expectations for the China-based crime drama had been high.

A pilot — featuring an arrogant British businessman (played by Jonathan Kos-Read) foolishly attempting to molest a female kung-fu student — won high praise from critics and viewers alike.

“This is essential viewing for young, unemployed men. The exciting plot confronts a serious and very important criminal trend in China today,” wrote the People’s Daily TV critic. “Foreign criminals.”

“I liked the bit where she kicks the foreigner hard in the groin and runs into the arms of a nearby CSI inspector for comfort,” said CSI fan Ma Jingguo, 17. “That was particularly satisfying and realistic.”

Yet SARFT officials later lambasted producers, after details of the second episode — in which a city official forces a subordinate to dine at a Japanese restaurant with an American businessman (played by Jonathan Kos-Read) — – were leaked on an online forum for mid in their mid-20s.

According to an internal SARFT memo, “The opening scene depicts the cadre leaving his duties to answer a personal phone call. He is then shortly after seen at a lunch banquet, drinking a light alcoholic beverage and encouraging his companions to do likewise.

“To depict top leaders’ behavior in such an unrealistic manner is hurtful to the image of the Party and hurts the feelings of the Chinese audience,” the memo concluded with quiet fury.

It is believed that angry censors did not even bother viewing the final scene, in which the same Shanghai official sodomizes an unconscious American prostitute (played by Jonathan Kos-Read), before choking on his own vomit.

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