Sunday, October 18, 2009

i watched csi miami on purpose


I don't know why I can tolerate CSI Classic but abhor CSI Miami. Actually, I do. CSI Miami is a horrible, horrible show, and CSI Classic isn't too cringe-inducing, and does help dull the painstakingly slow passage of time (I've never tried to sit through CSI NY before). It's not just David "Horatio" Caruso's horrible, horrible acting, but the horrible, horrible writing. A couple weeks ago we watched CSI Miami on the TV with commercials and everything, partly cuz we were trying to figure out what this TV thing is for. (Superiority note: I watch a lot of TV shows, just watch them on the internet cuz I'm hep; we had to get cable recently to keep our internet deal -- our cable is costing us -$20/mo. Also, it is basic cable, which apparently does not include Comedy Central or ESPN?)

So here is the plot of the show, told in forward order, rather than the reverse, uncovered twist after uncovered twist order popular in today's crime dramas. So this lady steals a necklace from the jewelry store she works at, and then drives somewhere, I don't remember why. Anyways, while she's driving, some in-the-closet guy had a liaison with like a prostitute or something. This prostitute tries to blackmail him, and in-the-closet guy kills him while they were sitting in his car on the side of the road. Necklace lady drives by at just the wrong time and sees everything, so in-the-closet guy chases her in his car and drives her off the road, leaving her for dead. But, she is not dead! And her abusive ex-husband then randomly drives by and sees her smashed car. He pulls over, and reaches through the broken dash window to kill her by banging her over the head with a gun. He then drives away, cuz a third criminal is driving by the wreck. She sees the wrecked car, and decides to rob the necklace lady. She reaches through the hole in the dash window to steal the million-bajillion dollar diamond necklace that necklace lady happens to have with her, somehow allowing one diamond to fall off the necklace, providing a vital clue! Sometime during this lady's no good, very bad drive, her jewelry store boss goes by her house looking for the necklace, and kicks her door in his frustration at her not answering the door (he ends up being like suspect number 17 in all of this).

Anyways, yeah, so the plot is just appalling. But I could deal with that! Well, maybe I couldn't, but the writers also make every line of dialog excruciatingly bad. In the lab, where science is techno-music cool (as in CSI Classic), the characters explain the evidence and their procedures in the most obnoxious way. It is always one character being completely ignorant of what's going on at all, so the other character will be like, "This is blah blah blah", explaining one part of the procedure. Then, the once-ignorant character will be like, "Ah yes, and then blah blah blah", continuing the exposition, the roles of ignorant and knowledgeable switching so that the audience who couldn't possibly tolerate one character speaking two sentences in a row will have their attention kept. Then, there are the painful scenes where the goodness of Horatio are exposed. Did you know Horatio loves children? There were multiple scenes where he was talking extra-slow to the necklace lady's son to gain his trust and calm him. It is beyond words for me to explain how painful this was to watch.

So, in conclusion, CSI Miami: terrible, terrible show.

No comments: