Television Review: CSI: Miami S2E17 - Wannabe

[Snowspinner]

Two things compelled me to begin watching this show. The first is Emily Proctor, who, back when she was on The West Wing, was the hottest thing ever to happen to the GOP. The second is David Caruso, so wonderfully referred to by Warren Ellis as "Carusobot." David Caruso is, without a doubt, the greatest thing to happen to robots since the Governator. Which is good, because if it weren't for the fact that the characters were all prone to interesting and well-written dialogue, this show would be fucking intolerable.

I mean, let's be frank here. This is not a detective show. Detective shows have mysteries. The point of watching a detective show is playing along – it's trying to figure out the solution before the end of the hour. That is not what you do on CSI: Miami. The closest thing to mystery solving that the audience gets to do here is "Gee, I wonder what the hell that green powder is." And it's not as though they're ever going to guess, so, really, what the fuck's the point? (Besides showing us one more time that Caruso and his minions are so much cooler than we are, as if we couldn't figure that out by the fact that they're in Miami, which is, as we all know, the absolute hippest place in the world to get shot.)

The point is that it's fun to watch David Caruso be a superior son of a bitch to people, it's fun to watch Emily Proctor babble, and it's fun to watch whoever their coroner chick is play gleefully with the dead people. So, basically, the show sinks or swims depending on three things. 1) How interesting a person David Caruso is being a cock to, 2) What Emily Proctor gets to babble about, and 3) How weird a dead body coroner chick gets to slice up.

Coroner chick got a stabbing, a shooting, and a self-inflicted axe wound to the forehead. Self-inflicted axe wound to the forehead was promising, but that particular poor bastard was to be the focus of a far less interesting character. Upshot – coroner chick pretty much only got to play with the shitty bodies this week.

Emily Proctor, now she was good this week. Got a nice bit about cleavage in addition to all of her bits about not liking ants. Sure, it's not as good as her spouting Aaron Sorkin-penned dialogue about the ERA and about corporate welfare, but we take what we are given. At least this week they were not wasting her talents. Plus, she got to shoot a gun.

But David Caruso, ah, here's where the episode really falls apart. See, last week on CSI: Miami we got a rerun. It was from a bit earlier in the season – retarded dude is witness to a murder, Carusobot has to befriend him to get the evidence. Midway through the episode, our loveable retard has a run-in with a baseball bat, and becomes a dead loveable retard. This sends Carusobot into a rage. Disappointingly, he does not level Miami by shooting death lasers from his eyes. He just catches the criminal and sends him to jail for killing his loveable retard. And then he attempts to show compassion, which is unfortunate, as, really, all Carusobot is good for is obnoxious one-liners indicating that he is bringing a criminal down. Sympathy, not so much.

Back to this week, we have, astonishingly, the exact same plot. Except instead of loveable retard, we get tremendously obnoxious forensic science fanboi. And instead of him getting murdered, he bashes his skull in with an axe. Which, while it might have been a promising adaptation of this plot, was more than undermined by the fact that Carusobot was not the one to be deeply moved by the plight of this mouthbreather. Instead, we got one of Caruso's minions – one of the ones where it's not even worth knowing their name. And instead of going on a murderous rampage, the Caruso minion's response to his agony over the death of his poor mouthbreathing witness is to… watch blood be tested for DNA.

Now, if you're going to make an episode of CSI: Miami that features a disappointing lack of David Caruso, that's fine. Even washed up television actors who should have fucking stuck with NYPD Blue deserve days off. After all, before South Park debuted, all of their ads featured a David Caruso joke. For that, at least, we thank him. No, the problem is not the lack of David Caruso. It's that this episode followed a repeat of an episode with the exact same fucking plot, only this time, it was done with more worthless characters. For fuck's sake, CBS, pretend the viewing public has a memory stretching back a whole week. Please.

In any case, next week it's David Caruso vs. Terrorists, in what looks like our best hope for Caruso breaking out the death lasers this season. Woo.

[Ubiq]

CSI:Miami, as a show, is so horrible that I have no idea why I watch it every week.

[Arcadian Del Sol]

Caruso is basically reprising his role from that Meg Ryan movie about her husband being kidnapped by Sandinistas or whatever they were. I have to admit that I like his character in CSI:Miami, but none of the other cast is worth watching.

I only watch it because its in HDTV.

[Signe]

Although the stories in both are good, Arcadian is right.  I seem to be able to relate to the cast in CSI much more easily.  They're attractive and interesting, and the acting seems to be slightly better than average TV quality.  The cast of CSI:Miami leaves me flat.  I don't seem to care about them and have no interest in knowing more about their lives.  

I do like Caruso, although I like the man with the miracle ears much better.  He has so many secrets!

[Arcadian Del Sol]

Grissom is going to leave at the end of this season because he's a spoiled baby and doesn't want 25 versions of CSI on tv.

as a counter-thread, the studio has floated some scripts where he dies, as a way of saying, "fine you want to leave? no guest spots. You leave, you stay left."

rumors of course.

[DarkDryad]

Grissom gone... NOOOOOOOOOO! I guess it was in the works for a while since hes been going deaf for quite some time.

[Ballast]

Ugh. Grissom leaving cripples CSI, imo. While the rest of the cast play interesting characters, and the acting is indeed a bit above the norm, the whole thing is held together by his character.

...and to stay slightly on-topic, I can't stand David Caruso. He displays all the expression and mannerism of a block of wood.

[Toast]

CSI:Miami - Meh.

CSI will be fine without Grissom, although he is a key character.  Eccentric geniuses are fun to watch.

The show is like reading a decent mystery with some shinies and gross-outs mixed in. The content and writing carries the show; the characters are secondary. I have noticed that the recent seasons focus almost exclusively on plot, not characterization.

[Ubiq]

...and to stay slightly on-topic, I can't stand David Caruso. He displays all the expression and mannerism of a block of wood.

The only thing I like about Caruso's character is how he phrases everything as an accusation, even to co-workers.  Even if he says the Sky is Blue, it seems to invite the accusee to breakdown and confess.

Still, he's the most enjoyable character on the show.  Which says a lot.