Culture Blues

Tortured by Television: The CSI Trilogy: Night 1 – CSI Miami

Every so often, one of our illustrious contributors can’t come up with something to write about. When this happens, we strap them down in front of a television and force them to take notes. The results are Tortured by Television:

The CSI Trilogy Night 1: CSI Miami

[Pre-show] I’m a big fan of crossovers. They’re a staple of the comic book world and I have vivid memories of some of my childhood’s more notable comic crossovers (Maximum Carnage, X-ecutioner’s Song). They’re much less common in other media though. I remember thinking that the Law & Order/Homicide: Life on the Streets crossovers of the 90s were really out of the ordinary.

So, when I saw ads hyping a CSI crossover, I was interested. When they started calling it the “CSI Trilogy,” I actually got excited. And I don’t even like CSI – 1,2 or 3. My familiarity with the entire brand amounts to watching clips of David Caruso deliver hilariously bad puns before removing his sunglasses on Youtube. So, naturally, I have some questions going in:

1)     How integrated are the episodes going to be? Some of the press leads me to believe it’s just going to be Laurence Fishburne appearing on the other two shows with loosely connected plots. If this is the case, not only am I going to be seriously disappointed, I’m also calling bullshit on the whole “trilogy” thing. I want a full-on 3-part story.

2)     Are they going to try to make this story more significant through some contrived device? Like linking it to a major character’s past or family? I certainly hope so.

3)     Are there any actors/characters that I will really find worthwhile?

4)     Which CSI is on tonight?

OK, the oddly successful, slightly watchable Big Bang Theory is ending. Here. We. Go.

9:57 A “for the first time ever” ad to get me hyped for the CSI Trilogy. OK, let’s do this.

9:58 Question #4 answered. It’s CSI Miami. The one with Caruso. And sometimes Jessie Spano.

10:00 We see a frantic mother trying to get help at a futuristic police station. The mom says “she’s only 22.” When did we start babying our kids so much? “Only 22?” I think that’s beyond the point where the age should be preceded by “only.” Unless it’s your step mom. Then it makes sense.

10:02 YYYEEEAAAAAHHHHH!!!!

10:07 They just gave us a really unnecessary flashback of the girl’s tires going over a spike strip. I actually don’t need a visual aide for the concept of someone’s tires getting popped. Thanks for condescending to me though. Meanwhile, the early detective work includes peeling a hotel valet stub off the windshield and deciding that it might be important. Really?!? Yathink? Man, I totally would have overlooked that!

10:08 And we have our first example of totally ridiculous and outlandish “crime scene investigation.” The Dexter blood splatter guy is bashing mannequin heads filled with jelly with various objects to see… um… well… to compare the blood splatters, I guess. I don’t even know where to begin with how dumb this seems, except to say that I don’t think his findings are going to hold up in a court of law.

10:09 One of the cops just called the valet “dumb as a spoon.” Wow, did Mamet write this episode?

10:11 The short cop just acted like finding an empty tequila bottle and a cigar in this scumbag’s hotel room was equivalent to uncovering an S&M dungeon with endangered animal carcasses hanging from the walls and the Declaration of Independence in a toilet. When did a fucking cigar become a sure fire sign of foul play? I hope this guy doesn’t come to my apartment and find all these books without covers I have. He might try to take me downtown for questioning.

The CSI laboratory

10:13 There’s a lot of hip music and MTV editing in this lab work. I don’t even know what kind of experiment they’re doing. There doesn’t seem to be a logical structure to this sequence.

10:15 The hippy cop just got alerted to someone using a flagged credit card by a giant monitor with a translucent console in front of it. Seriously, what year does this take place in? Is it a Star Trek spin off?

10:16 The large black cop just got mocked for thinking a turtle shell was a bone fragment. What’s his function on the show? Is he a promising young cop? Is he a joke? Is he CSI’s muscle?

10:18 They just discovered the missing girl’s leg and then Caruso hugged the mom while making an indescribable face that made me a little bit queasy.

10:20 Wow. Have you guys seen this Windows 7 commercial with the bulldog? He’s great. Highlight of the night so far.

10:23 Miami is super orange. It’s like the whole city got a bad spray tan. Which I suppose is appropriate.

10:26 These people just used the Point Break “composition of the sand” trick to figure out that this amputated leg came from Nevada. And they did it without any of the police work.

10:27 This blond lady was just looking at the amputated leg one minute ago but she can’t tell Fishburne if it had a tattoo on the ankle. Seriously.

10:28 Fishburne and Caruso, together for the first time ever! (since King of New York)

10:30 This fun size Take 5 bar is delicious.

"I've never seen anything like it. This man was killed by a time travel orb."

10:34 Oh shit! It’s Socrates Poole! And he’s treating Fishburne like some sort of rock star. “I know who you are! I read your book.” Shut up.

10:35 The amputations may have been performed with a cleaver or machete. The prime suspect: Jason Voorhees.

10:37 Apparently this chef has a “signature” single stroke meat cutting technique. And that is what has made him rich and famous. Did I mention that there are slabs of meat hanging from the ceiling in the middle of his restaurant? I hope this is going to be integral to the plot.

10:39 Another scene of a scientist doing something in a lab to a song off NOW! That’s What I Call Dance Music For a CBS Procedural 32.  Untz Untz Untz.

10:41 They just got this guy to confess by telling him that he has Hepatitis C and that there is only one way he could have possibly gotten it. Dude! Come on. If the cops ever tell you there is only one way something could have happened. Don’t believe them. Deny everything! And let someone smarter than yourself (like your lawyer) think up another possible explanation. Miami has lousy criminals. BTW, his infection was illustrated by some CGI blood cells getting attacked by mucous or something.

10:49 Thank god they just recapped everything that happened right before the break. I was really lost here for a minute. And seriously, who is this blond lady? What does she do? All she has done so far is hold pointless little meetings with people. She’s like my boss.

Eat the CSI! Eat the CSI!

10:50 There’s a bear on my TV right now. I’m not sure why, but I certainly hope it rips one of these CSI guys apart.

10:54 Wait, the second killer’s DNA was on the girl’s bones? You found those bones almost 40 minutes ago! Why the fuck didn’t you test them for DNA and listen to some techno back then?!?

10:56 Fishburne just consoled Caruso by saying they took two killers off the streets today. That is totally untrue. The chef  very clearly said that he did not kill the girl. He just chopped her up. In fact, I’m not even sure that’s a crime.

10:57 To be continued… on CSI NY!

Post-Show:

Thoughts: First off, I expected a lot more scientific mumbo jumbo. They don’t even pretend that there is any rhyme or reason to that part of the show. They also have a tendency to dress up most of the shots with gratuitous camera effects that do nothing except distract the viewer. Which I suppose is the point. Not to mention the fact that there is constantly glass and futuristic furnishings obscuring shots in the police office. As for my questions:

1)     How will the stories be integrated? It looks like it is just Laurence Fishburne hopping around the country. Which means he’s going to end up back in Las Vegas. He could have never left and still caught them.

2)     Are they going to make the case more significant through contrived devices? Doesn’t look like it. It’s just a plain old case.

3)     Any worthwhile characters or actors? Not here. Unless you count Caruso’s unintentionally funny tough guy routine. I don’t.

How Torturous Was It? It was pretty rough. It’s vapid, loud and grotesque. It felt pretty short which I guess makes it less torturous, but that might just be because I was so busy scribbling down all the nonsense going on.

Would you watch again? Almost definitely not. There wasn’t even any action or bad puns. Total rip off. The prospect of this street gang that is “run like a corporation” (more like the corporations are run like a gang) has me not totally dreading the rest of the Trilogy. And the next episode appears to feature shotguns and a foot chase along the tops of cars, so things are looking up. My dreams of a Caruso/Fishburne/Sinise tandem seem to have been dashed though. Frowny face.