C. S. LOL Miami

It is the most popular TV show in the world- CSI Miami.

Call it Miami Vice 2.0. Tubbs and Crockett were once on the most popular show in the world, too.

The Arts (lol) and Entertainment Network was conducting one of their all-day CSI: Miami moron-athons recently. I was catatonic, spending most of the day bouncing the tip of my index finger off my lower lip making Porky Pig sounds. A perfect day to play TV critic.

I pretended I was in the land of my ancestors- Bohemia, watching this American TV show, and the impression it would give me as an outsider.

To a foreigner, it is obvious that Miami is a Yellow City. The show seems to have an annoyingly sunny look to it, even in scenes supposedly shot at night. It’s as if they place a urine-colored lens on the camera so there’s sunshine 24-7, like some parts of Alaska during the summer.

After a couple episodes, one would surmise that Miami has a huge crime problem with rich white people and super-models of all colors. Bored with their wealth and toys, they find reasons to harpoon gun their rivals or decapitate them in their BMW convertibles by stringing wire across Biscayne Boulevard.

When one of these hideous but oddly glamorous murders takes place, the CSI team is called in.

This group of sleuths is led by David Caruso, who crawled back out from the Rock of Obscurity after realizing playing TV cop would be his thespian ceiling. Caruso plays a guy named Horatio Cane, whose mouth only works when he removes his aviator sun glasses.

Each show opens with the special Director’s Obsession Cut of Cane’s monotone seriousness, as he makes an epic statement summarizing the crime. Gazing down at a dead Brazilian Supermodel with a fire extinguisher wedged in her mouth, Horatio will mutter “Now it’s a murder” Then Roger Daltrey screams and we enjoy a few bars of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by that great American band, The Who. No, The Who is from England. Or Britain. That country with a Queen.

The CSI team includes a life-like blonde who conveys all the warmth of a mounted barracuda on a fishing lodge wall. I don’t know much about her because she talks in a mealy squeal and is barely intelligible. She also owns a push-up bullet proof vest from Victoria Secrets.

To complete this diverse representation of the Magic City, the team also has Hispanic and African American actors who obviously completed the How Serious Can I Take Myself Graduate Program.

Their key to solving crimes is wax. Everything in CSI Miami;s world is waxed with “a shine that looks a foot deep” (as the old TV commercial used to say. Floors, giant desk tops, conference room tables, lab counters, airport runways and The Everglades all look like they were just Turtle Waxed.

From my hotel room TV in Bohemia, it also appears that everything in Miami is hyper-clean. Someone must take time to Swiffer Wet Jet the streets, which are always glimmering moistly, even on sunny days.

The characters trade sullen dialogue while parading around the waxed floors of their lab with entries to the Swab of the Month Club. Just like in real life, they close a laptop over a Q-tip and get instant DNA results, including photos and recent credit card purchases.

The team then drives a $200,000 Hummer to the suspect’s house, which coincidentally is also Spic’n Span, with no dust and richly waxed floors. One would get the impression that the good citizens of Miami commit their crime, go home to dust and wax the floors, and sit around absolutely motionless until someone from the CSI team arrives to arrest them.

The most annoying character is/was the Angry Medical Examiner played by Khandi Alexander. I don’t know her character’s name because like the lifeless blonde, she mumbles through her always-contorted face. She is at the top of the list of people I Never Want To See Eating Corn-on-the-Cob. They finally got rid of her last season but she contorts forever in re-runs.

In the midst of all these cool crime solvers and waxed floors is a Buford Pusser type, a guy named Frank who managed to become a police detective, even though he was born with Siamese Lips. Maybe one day a miracle surgery will separate them, but for now he verbalizes through his sinuses. Frank though, is easier to understand than the lifeless blonde or the angry ME

What a team!

If you watch the show, you’ll note that half the film is shot through palm trees with cameras directly aimed at the sun during Solar Eclipse. I get it already! Miami. Lotta sun there.

If you have ventured into the real Miami- Dade County you’re no doubt amused by the routes the CSI team takes to crime scenes. Somehow they can get to South Beach by traveling West on the Julia Tuttle, which connects to Star Island via the Turnpike. Ha!

That’s why I love the show. It is high comedy. They’ve even shown the Metrorail with people riding in the cars! C’mon now!

I am sure the gross inaccuracies will be written off to “artistic license”, the uber-excuse for butchering reality. Oliver Stone does it with history. CSI does it today. I do understand that it’s all only make believe.

The only real murder victim on CSI Miami is the truth.