CSI-MIAMI SEASON PREMIERE

I don't know why I love the CSI shows but I do, I really love them. CSI is creepy and weird, CSI New York tries WAAAY too hard to be cool and CSI Miami is like Miami Vice with a better budget. I don't follow these shows like I do Supernatural or Fringe but I still love watching them as a way to decompress from everything else. The CSI Miami season premiere is the first of the CSI premieres and I have to say it was actually a lot of fun to watch. I guess part of it for me is that I don't really "care" about the characters so it's fun to watch them run around in their sun soaked world and solve crimes wearing clothes no state employee could possibly afford. I mean when you watch two hot women study a crime scene in designer pants and wedges, that's good times.

When last we saw Horatio "Sunglasses" Caine and his merry band of crime solvers it was a grim scene. Agent Eric Delko had been shot trying to help is ex-con dad escape and when the season premiere opens up he's laying in a hospital bed fighting for his life. Is it me or do these producers always slap the shit out of Delko when they need drama? His sister was killed, he was shot in the head and now he's near death once again. I guess it's because everybody hates officer Ryan Wolfe so much and the producers have set Horatio up as superhuman. The interesting twist on the season premiere is that it's shot in two different time frames.

While the CSI agents look worried and do their best "heavy sigh" acting to show they feel bad about Delko the show jumps back twelve years to when Horatio Caine first arrived in Miami from New York. The show's been on for eight years so this takes us way back to before any of the crew even knew each other. Naturally there's a brutal murder and everybody believes one thing while Horatio believes another. The rest of the show jumps between Delko in the hospital and showing how the team got together.

Believe it or not there is some really interesting stuff in the flashback section of the show. Delko before he was a cop, Calleigh Duquesne as a bright eyed always smiling happy go lucky agent, Frank Tripp as a beat cop, etc. There is one silly moment where we first meet Natalie Boa Vista which I though unnecessary since they didn't try to sneak Ryan Wolfe in the flashbacks but whatever, it was still fun to watch. Nothing much happens in the "present day" section except Delko being sick but the "flashback" manages to go off the grid a little. Mainly it shows how nobody cared about forensic science in 1997 until Horatio showed up and used it to prove everybody wrong and convict the right man. At the end we hear mention of a guy named "Speed" as well as a tongue in cheek look at how Horatio got his trademark shades.

The CSI Miami season premiere was good fun, nothing incredibly deep or special, just a really good time at home on the couch. I'm sure Delko will be fine and within a few episodes it'll be back to killer-of-the-week stuff and I'll watch. For some reason the silliness of the show makes me love it and I still laugh to myself when Horatio makes some big statement and then slips on the shades.

Performance wise nobody does anything different. David Caruso still talks to everybody with his head bent to an angle, Delko still looks more like cheesecake than a cop, Calleigh bops around or looks "sad", etc etc. Stretching the parameters of "acting" isn't really what CSI is about so faulting it for shoddy acting just seems mean to me. If you're looking for deeper TV watch Law & Order but on those nights you want to veg check out CSI Miami.