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Chronicling
the work of the Miami-Dade crime investigators, CSI: Miami
is set against the sun, fun and tropics of the Florida tourist
haven. Leading the team is Horatio Caine, an ex-bomb squad
detective who is no stranger to confrontations with criminals
and the underworld...
The
second half of season one of CSI: Miami doesn't get
off to a good start. Bunk is a rather dull episode.
Here the crime lab investigates the death of a man who was
found dead in a neighbour's house after accidentally inhaling
a lethal cocktail of chemicals. In another part of the city,
an old age pensioner is found dead in a pool of blood, in
what appears to be a vicious murder. Sadly, getting to the
bottom of both of these deaths just seems to drag on and on.
This
is followed by the better, but slightly odd Forced Entry.
In this episode a rapist is found dead, having been sexually
assaulted in the same style he subjected his victims to. I
was a little confused as to why it was the CSI team that had
to tell the police to go and interview the partners of the
dead man's previous victims. Surely that would have happened
immediately when it was obvious that whoever committed the
murder had detailed knowledge of how the dead man raped his
victims.
Sadly,
as the episodes in this box set unfold, it becomes more and
more apparent that Miami's local law enforcement are as thick
as two short planks. While that's not the case, I'm sure,
in real life why is it that the crime lab are always telling
other agencies how to do their jobs.
I've
said it before, in my review of Season
1 - Part 2, but Horatio 'H' Caine must be about
the most annoying lead character in any mainstream show. He's
a cocky know it all who you just want to punch in the face
- repeatedly. Why does he always know everything within ten
seconds of being at the crime scene? Why does he know how
to do everybody's job better then them? Why is he so annoying?
What
am I talking about? Let's take the episode Dipo Day
as an example. Here Cain and Speedle are involved in a shoot
out when they are part of a convoy headed to the local incinerator
in order to destroy a quantity of confiscated drugs. The criminals
make off with the drugs and everything points to a member
of CSI being the leak. So far, that's pretty straight forward.
However Caine thinks that the mother who crashed her car,
causing the accident, may know something. Why? Not because
she caused the accident, and therefore is probably in on it,
but because when the accident happened and everyone opened
fire, she screams "Not my baby!" as her child is
in the back of the car. For some reason Caine believes she
was screaming that it was not her baby, while the audience
thinks, quite rightly, that she is screaming because she doesn't
want her baby to be injured. And guess what? Caine is right
again! Sorry, I rewatched that sequence and his theories (although
proved right) are cod!
Then
in Grave Young Men Caine gets to play Scooby-Doo
all on his own. He is approached by a man he framed for murder
years before and wants Caine to help him find his son who
has vanished. When Caine examines the boys bedroom he realises
that the kid had recently shot a gun from his bedroom window,
and then finds that the gun was fired into a tree in his garden.
Then, for reasons never fully explained, Cain gets someone
to cut the tree down and take a large chunk of it into the
CSI lab. Now why did he do this? Having guns in America is
hardly surprising. All you'd figure from this is that the
kid shot off a few rounds into a tree. But no, Caine thinks
(and you know he's going to be right) that something more
sinister is the cause. This really is stretching a storyline
to the max.
But,
by far the most unbelievable Caine storyline is saved for
the final episode, Body Count. Called to investigate
a murder in a prison, Caine spots a helicopter, works out
that the murder is a decoy for a prison breakout, seems to
be a better marksman than the prison guards, and then grabs
the prison radio and orders those on the other side of the
radio to track the chopper. So he has managed to do the jobs
of several people who are just running around looking confused
while he takes charge of the situation - oh, please!
Part
of the charm and success of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
was the fact that there were so many likeable characters.
CSI: Miami revolves around Caine, bringing in the other
characters as background faces. This means that ultimately
this is a one character show - and it just doesn't work.
By
far the best character is chief medical examiner Alexx Woods,
M.D (played by Khandi Alexander). To start with she doesn't
feature too heavily, but when she does she gives a warmth
to the character - there are several episodes where she talks
to the dead bodies, like a mother, as she is working on them.
Finally, in the episode Freaks and Tweaks she has to
perform an autopsy on the body of one of her oldest friends
- on being told that he is dead, her acting is amazingly convincing.
And
I wish they'd tone down the music a little too! In one scene
Caine states: "We're chasing the cook." Sadly, due
to his mumbling and the background music it sounded like:
"We're chasing the cock." Very unfortunate. I had
to go back and watch that scene again with subtitles on to
find out what he had actually said.
Sadly,
to date, this series is not a patch on CSI: Crime Scene
Investigation. While there are some interesting episodes,
the fact that Caine is constantly fitting the evidence to
fit his crazy theories beggars belief.
Amber
Leigh
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