Mrs. Skippy and I are big fans of CSI, so we were looking forward to the slough of new, gritty, procedural dramas from CBS this season. Sadly, none of the freshman programs measured up to our expectations.
We started off the New Fall TV Season Preview Week with CSI: Miami, the new spin-off our favorite Thursday night forensic drama. Both shows, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, detail how mysteries are solved by the Crime Scene Investigation squads; the original, set in Las Vegas, the Miami-based one, based in, well, Miami.
Or so the titles tell you. But the settings, cast, dialects, lighting, and obvious soundstage sets tell you something completely different. First of all, there are very few Latino or Cubans in this Miami; only one African-American, and so far, no Gays. It's like we're in some weird kind of Bizarro-dimension Miami populated by Pretty Yet Serious Caucasians. Sure, Khandi Alexander is the coroner, and Adam Rodriguez is one of the investigors, but to be truthful, they both come across like Pretty Yet Serious Caucasians, only with really heavy tans.
And yes, there are outside establishing shots, trying to convince you that you're in southern Florida. Look, there's an alligator farm! Check it out, the Fountainbleu! But the lighting for the generic outside scenes is way too harsh for the Florida coast, and the Everglades shots were laughably backed by some sort of nebulous, murky light cloud, as opposed to an actual horizon. It seemed to be saying to the viewer: Hey, don't look back here, look up front where the investigation is, come on, it's the Everglades, really! Don't look for a cloud or a sky, there might be a crocadile right in front of you!
And don't expect any dialects to help you guess what city you're in. The real Miami has a gamut of accents and speech patterns, running all the way from Fidel Castro to Jerry Seinfeld's Uncle Leo, retiring in Boca. But the closest thing we get to something that doesn't sound like Middle America is the Nordic-looking yet Alabama-sounding Emily Procter, who pushes her native Carolina accent so thickly that we expect pecans and mint julips to drip out of her mouth.
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Article comments
1 - Bill Sherman
In our house we recall William Petersen from To Live and Die in L.A. (hey, a Wang Chung theme song!) and Michael Mann's what's-the-point-of-remaking-this-anyway maiden version of Red Dragon - not to mention his role as a philandering car salesman in Cousins. So it's not exactly as if the man were exactly an unknown when he started in C.S.I. Still, the teevee series has done much more for his public profile than Manhunter, so your basic point still holds - even if my wife's thought he is a hottie for years . . .
2 - skippy
bill,
sure, mr. petersen was well-known to this reviewer for the excellent film manhunter, but he certainly didn't have the tv q of caruso or delaney, or even those other guys fresh from tv shows last season, so we will stand by our point until we get bored and walk away.