mnpollio Review of CSI: Miami

CSI: Miami (2002–2012)

Lesser CSI entry - still worth a peek even when bad

[6/10 · 23 July 2010]

Of the entries in the CSI franchise, CSI: Miami is certainly the least impressive, but still manages to attain gangbuster ratings, which is ironic considering how few people will actually own up to watching it. And watch it, they do. Despite its weaknesses (and they are legion), it would be dishonest to say that the show does not have its pleasures, many of them guilty ones. It is arguably the most beautifully photographed show on network TV and its investigation stories are consistently imaginative and interesting. Where it comes apart is in its uneven character writing and acting. The other CSI shows are consistent with their characters, but not so CSI: Miami. Characters like Adam Rodriguez's Delko can be played for ages as a no-nonsense do-gooder and then have an episode where he is suddenly depicted as an exhibitionist sexaholic who loses his badge during a public tryst. Or Jonathan Togo's Ryan Wolfe who is introduced as an obsessive compulsive, who then makes sloppy errors in judgment an OCD sufferer would never make. Season 1 opened with David Caruso and Kim Delaney as the co-leads, with Emily Procter, Rodriguez, Khandi Alexander and Rory Cochrane in support, and acting was mixed. Caruso was barely tolerable, Delaney appeared shell-shocked and left mid-season, Alexander's touchy-feely coroner who holds conversations with the cadavers was just strange and Rory Cochrane was catatonic. Cochrane left soon after and no one noticed. Caruso gradually honed his bizarre lead performance over the seasons into a prime example of unintentional comedy - a brazen superhero who can take out legions of baddies with one bullet and no back-up, posturing with his sunglasses, then turning on a dime to deliver nerve-jangling super-sensitive bilge to victims in kabuki-like reverence. The relatively recent loss of Alexander was no loss at all and Rodriguez's acting has degenerated from appealing to that of a pouting runway model whose expression rarely changes. Procter has remained a bright spot and credit to Togo who manages to do backflips to make his character's outrageous lapses and inconsistencies somewhat believable. Recent newcomers Omar Miller and Eddie Cibrian are of a higher caliber than the show is used to - but I gather Cibrian is being shown the door to accommodate the return of the lifeless Rodriguez (who was not gone long enough). The less said about recurring characters such as the ludicrous Alana de la Garza as Caruso's disaster-prone love interest, Elizabeth Berkley as his cuckoo ex-dalliance and Evan Ellingson as his insipid son, the better. The trio manage the feat of making Caruso look like Olivier by comparison. Yet amazingly, the show is always interesting on some level and generates plenty of discussion, even when its acting and characters approach train wreck proportions.