They made me go to Miami!

I’m a huge fan of the original CSI. I’ve watched the repeats so many times on Spike that I can usually figure out which epi it is in the first 5 minutes. I also watch CSI: NY, though not quite as obsessively (Mmmm, Eddie Cahill). But I have never been able to get through more than a few minutes of CSI: Miami, until last night. And I gotta tell you, it was NOT easy.

If you are a fan of CSI: Miami, you might want to wander off, because I’m probably about to insult you. How can anyone watch that crap!

For those of you who managed to miss CBS’s wall to wall ads, there is a CSI “trilogy” this week, as Dr. Ray Langston follows a case from Miami on Monday night, to NY on Wednesday night, back to Las Vegas on Thursday night. The case is unusually gross, with hacked up body parts of several victims surfacing in Miami.

I enjoy the way the ensemble casts are used in LV and NY, and the writing is sometimes wonderful, and always at least good enough for me to want to know how it ends. But I’ve always found Miami to be all about Horatio Caine. He wanders onto crime scenes and solves them by osmosis, then he brings down a drug cartel, fathers a child, and befriends orphans on his lunch break. And he whispers. All the time. I think he’s creepy.

So anyway, I sat through the whole episode last night so I wouldn’t be missing parts of the story later in the week. The dialogue was cheesy and awful. Suspects confessed for no apparent reason. And the background music was grating and often overpowered scenes. Was I supposed to be surprised that the guy who owns the “butcher” themed restaurant butchered the victim? And the acting amounted to everyone making doe-eyes at Langston, and calling him “Dr. Ray”. Ugh.

I don’t understand how this show gets such high ratings! What is the appeal? If they made me watch Miami to try to convince me to be a regular viewer, they accomplished the exact opposite. Fail!