Silly Little Country

OK I agree CSI Miami is ridiculous

I have now seen several episodes. The Las Vegas incarnaton has very nice ensemble acting, and a few years of growing complexities. I *like* all the characters, except for the rotten top manager (Eckley?).
The plots for the Miami shows just do not work so well. There is less of the interesting interplay between threads that occurs in CSI, but even worse, most of the plots I have now seen strive to be relevant, and this generally means stupid. The most recent syndicated episode I have seen of CSI:Miami featured sons of some Central American dictator who supposedly had diplomatic immunity in the US against even murder charges (really? sounds nuts) because their father, the local Generalissimo, tortured prisoners for the State Department. The number of ways that this was fatuous is pointless to describe. Of course in the end David Caruso wins on a technicality (this requires the bad guys to be really really dumb but that is a dramatic tradition of some importance), but when he does it is not very satisfying - a total deus ex machina. In a more recent episode there is deep meaningfulness related to finding sunken treasure. Almost all silly.
Maybe the nice thing is that Las Vegas is an environment for a crime show that requires no phony meaningfulness. It can always be refreshing. Miami still has its problems.
I have seen only one CSI:NY episode, and it featured Penelope Ann Miller's decolletage, and so it is hard to judge anything more than that. That part was realy good.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 6:55 PM