TV Review: CSI - Post-Mortem
Published October 29, 2006
CSI: NY was DOA.
Moving up on the list is CSI: Miami. Here I thought they couldn’t do wrong. It's Miami, likely the most corrupt city in North America and it’s pretty, it’s sunny, and it’s got beaches, surf, the whole nine yards. When I started watching Miami, it was a feast. It basically copied the recipe from Vegas but made everything slicker and more action oriented. I saw nothing wrong with this, at first, since I didn’t want a CSI clone set in Miami. I thought it had its own identity. It looked like Horatio Caine was the prince of cool. Calleigh Duquesne is simply the hottest CSI ever, but then, I just hear her speak and I melt like a 14-year old getting a handful of breast for the first time, so I’m completely biased. Alexx Wood (why the two Xs, anyway?) was touching with her compassion for the victims. The story line had some background to it, like Horatio’s brother and sister-in-law.
But again, they overdid it on the aesthetics part — too much of it and not enough substance. This series needs a jolt of reality because it is highly repetitive — crime scene, Horatio says something witty, obvious, and predictable then puts his sunglasses on with both hands and/or looks sideways and walks away, cue the title music. Because it is highly repetitive -- Alexx, always in a very expensive tailleur and Gucci sunglasses, is inspecting the corpse and then ponders wisely on the poor end the victim met at the hands of a murderous bad guy. Because it is highly repetitive -- Horatio ends up doing something heroic and worthy of a huge camera panning around him with his carrot-top in the wind… how cool is that?
How many sunglasses with both hands can you ingest? How many of the same line with a different name inserted can you tolerate? “[Insert name — here said in a stern and stoic voice], we’re gonna find him, I promise.” Come on, guys, think of something better. This is exactly what Lisa Simpson meant when she screamed about two-dimensional characters with catch phrases. What’s worse is that Caine is progressively turning into some modern Dirty Harry. Just last week, he calmly drove a bomb-laden car through downtown Miami, parked it on a pier, walked smoothly away as the car blew up, never even blinking, his heartbeat never getting above 70, and catch phrasing again with “Boom, baby” (or something of the sort) and that’s where the show completely lost me as a viewer. End of story. I’ll never watch again.
Dave works in the IT industry despite his better judgment. He’s an artist at heart with a critical mind. He enjoys photography more than he could ever express. Dave feels a need to tweak his brain with copious amounts of taurine to stay sharp while absorbing all kinds of media on any medium. He runs two blogs The End of Dave and Postcards from The End (a photoblog)
- TV Review: CSI - Post-Mortem
- Published: October 29, 2006
- Type: Review
- Section: Video
- Filed Under: Video: Television, Video: TV Recap, Video: Drama, Video: Crime, Video: Adventure
- Writer: David Desjardins
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- David Desjardins's personal site
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The science on CSI: Miami is abysmal. At least NY tends to get it right most of the time. For some reason, I've yet to catch a serious gaffe on CSI itself.
BTW: On CSI: Miami, you can tell who the bomber is. The bomber always has a model rocket some place or uses model rocket fuel (although in a way that wouldn't actually work). The model rocket community sued the BATFE, and the BATFE is out for payback.
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Woohoo! Great
I do not like CSI like I used to anymore, Gil Grissom lost his spark. Hooking him up with a subordinate was so wrong, as they made Gil, the once well-loved character, into a hypocritical jerk. I try to catch the Greg or Catherine-heavy episodes though as they're the only remaining likeable and interesting characters on the show.
Personal attacks are not allowed? Poor Mr. Sinise. Somebody broke the rules!
"Boom, baby" (or something of the sort)
Believe it or not it was actually worse than you thought...
He said "Burn...Baby burn". I had to stop myself from screaming "Noooooooooooooooo!" and leaping out a window.
That was the night the lights went out in Florida.
On campus, I saw a flyer, on Thursday of a few weeks ago, which said that they were showing CSI, with free popcorn, in the Student Center.
It must not have been advertised well, because I was the only one who showed up, for watching the show.
That was the episode where that young CSI was attacked by the mob, which had been killing people.
For some reason, the large television in the Student Center cut out, right after they captured one of the bad guys, at the end (the episode was almost over anyway, but it was odd how it just cut out, at that moment)... I don't know if this was a CBS problem, or just a problem with that television set.
Anyway, I (though not a regular viewer of that show, aspects of which I find annoying) watched the last episode, on Thursday night. I saw, at the beginning, that one of their storylines appeared to be a courtroom-type scene... Something that I'm a fan of. (I'm a Law and Order person, not a CSI person :-)
Initially, I thought that it may be a 'mock trial' exercise, but then, I was not pleased to find out that - not only was it for real, but the person on 'trial' was that CSI, who was brutally beaten. It makes me mad that someone, who was victimized like that, because of his heroic actions, was actually hauled before an inquest hearing, with a jury.... I had assumed, when that episode a few weeks ago cut out, that it was going to be over, once that case had been resolved.
It is troubling if, in our current system, someone can be hauled before an inquest hearing, with a free-for-all-type process, in a case such as this, which is so obviously clear-cut.
Does anyone know whether things like that often happen in real life?
(This case does bring to mind the real-life case of undercover police officer Lee Van Houten, who shot recently-graduated teenager Edmund Perry... There was a movie made about this case, which I only saw part of. Officer Houten was cleared by a grand jury, which also returned charges against the brother of Edmund Perry, who ended up being acquitted of the assault on Officer Van Houten. But I hope that in real life, police officers who have already been brutally assaulted are not put through the treatment that the CSI has been, during this current season.)
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CSI has remained fairly strong, in my book. The recent episode where Greg is jumped? Holy crap!
Miami does become a series of cliches at times, but it's Miami, dude!
NY, well...it took a while, but I'm finally starting to get into it. It seems darker and drearier, flatter, and more impenetrable, but hang in there. It'll grow on you.