CSI: Miami: Difference between revisions

The show uses its Miami setting to tell different stories to its Vegas counterpart; due to its coastal setting, the show features more water-based mysteries (e.g., stories involving dead people on boats and people fleeing Cuba), as well as dropping the 'pure science' angle of its parent series for a more direct 'police procedural' concept (meaning that Horatio Caine is primarily a police officer, rather than a scientist). One of its oddities is Alexx, [[The Coroner]], who liked to say, "Oh, poor baby" or words to that effect over the corpse of the week (it's established early in the series that she does it to give the deceased a sense of 'reassurance'). Other characters include Calleigh Duquesne, known as the "bullet girl"; Ryan Wolfe (always referred to by Horatio as "Mr. Wolfe"); and Eric Delko, whose intensely drippy sister was briefly married to Mr. Caine before getting introduced to the business end of a firearm.

 

 

The actors have mentioned that they believe the show to be a comic-book world that happens to be filmed in live-action, which... explains an awful lot, actually.

* [[Cold Opening]]: often featuring some of the most intense techno beats ever.

* [[Color Wash]]: Everything is orange. Because it's in Miami.

* [[Coolest Club Ever]]: It '''IS''' Miami, after all.

* [[Cool Shades]]: Horatio Caine...[[Glasses Pull|*puts on shades*]] that is all.

* [[Danger Takes a Backseat]]: The first [[Victim of the Week]] in "Special Delivery".

* [[Dead for Real]]: {{spoiler|Speed and now Jesse.}}

** {{spoiler|An "immersive reality" game turns real when one of the actors dies of a broken neck when she's accidentally pushed over a piano.}}

* [[Death Glare]]: Horatio and Delko while [[Perp Sweating]].

* [[Diplomatic Impunity]]: One of the bad guys, naturally.

* [[Dramatic Landfall Shot]]

* [[Drugs Are Bad]]: {{spoiler|Horatio's son is now working in the coroner's office (don't ask me how or why) and Horatio suspects he's stealing drugs. It turns out that Dr. Price (the current coroner) is an Oxycontin addict - when a grenade went off in the lab, Wolfe noticed her grabbing her spilled drugs: "Your pills are more important then your safety?"}}

* [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"]]: Tim "Speed" Speedle.

** Super H : Horatio, especially during his dramatic escapes without injury.

* [[Fan Service]]: What else do you call the regular shots in the pre-titles sequence of scantily-clad women? Or every outfit in Calleigh or Natalia's wardrobes? And, occasionally, Alex.

* [[Flanderization]]: Caine used to have moments when [[Dull Surprise|he woruld actually emote]].

** Caine used to have moments where he worked in the lab, like, you know, a CSI.

* [[Good Is Not Soft]]: Compare and contrast the way Horatio is with victims of crime compared to suspects.

* [[Gut Feeling]]: Horatio. In fact, one wonders why the Miami-Dade police department even needs crime scene investigators, given the guilty party always turns out to be the person H doesn't like.

* [[Hot Mom]]: Julia Winston, and arguably Alexx.

* [[Hot Scientist]]: Take your pick of the ''entire cast''. There is Simmons, who is...''heavier'' than most people, but otherwise pretty good lookin'.

* [[Idiot Ball]]: The CSIs don't even have a camera in their interrogation rooms. Allowing suspects to beat themselves up on the table and claim police brutality.

** What makes this scene even worse is the fact that said interrogation room is basically made entirely out of glass, meaning pretty much anyone else in the entire police station at the time and within 200 yards of the scene would have seen the suspect smashing their head into the table while Horatio is standing on the other side of the room.

*** The sad part is that the ''suspect beating himself up to claim police brutality ploy'' happened not one, but '''twice'''. Seems that while they can afford holographic interfaces, cameras for the interrogation rooms are still way too expensive.

**** A possible justification is that Horatio uses the interrogation room to beat up suspects he doesn't like several times. It would be difficult to explain why the cameras were shut off for a while.

* [[Lighter and Softer]]: it certainly seems like it, but probably just due to [[Narm]].

* [[Locard's Theory]]: Mentioned by name at least twice.

* [[MacGyvering]]: When Calleigh gets kidnapped, she uses her l33t forensic skillz to give the team the identities of her kidnappers and her location, which [[CSI|Catherine]] had also done, [[Recycled Script|years before]].

* [[Made of Iron]]: {{spoiler|At the end of an episode Ryan is kidnapped by a group of Russians and tortured brutally all night long, including multiple blows to the head and chest}}. The next morning he goes home, cleans up, and proceeds to climb ''thirty flights of stairs to get to a crime scene, without even breaking a sweat''.

** Then in the Season 10 premiere, despite having been shot, Horatio leaps into the water to save Boa Vista, spends a few minutes underwater rescuing her. Then despite being taken to the hospital, he doesn't get treatment and spends the entire show chasing down the bad guys. Sure, he doesn't look that great but still.

* [[Magical Computer]]

* [[The Main Characters Do Everything]]: While not as bad about this as the original, this show definitely falls into this category. For starters, while in real life most CSIs actually are police officers (meaning having badges and guns is not much of stretch) they would not be doing lab work or interrogating suspects. A CSI's jobs is simply to obtain and document evidence from crime scenes, and then they move on to the next. Horatio Caine, holds the rank of Lieutenant, a supervisory position that would keep him in the lab for the most part (doing administrative work, not lab work) in real life, if he were going to show up at a crime scene he would not be the first to get there as he more than likely would have been called in by the investigators already on the scene. In reality, Detective Sergeant Frank Tripp is the only person in the main cast that would be doing the investigating.

** [[Mystery Science Theater 3000|"No one will be admitted during the breathtaking car-parking sequence!"]]

** That and they edit looking at lab samples to make it look exciting.

* [[Native American Casino]]: In the episode "Bloodline", a gaming official accused of trying to dip into Indian casino profits is found scalped to death.

* [[Nautical Knockout]]: In one episode, a woman dies as a result of getting struck with a boom, rupturing her breast implants. No, really.

* [[Power Walk]]: At one point, Horatio opens the episode in a confessional. There's some commotion in the cemetery right outside, which happens to be gunmen disrupting a funeral. After an exchange of gunfire, Caine, Alex, and Frank are all standing around while the other three CSIs, each in their own car, all arrive. They walk towards the crime scene in slow motion while Alex, H, and Frank talk about the murder. All told, they cut back to the Power Walk ''[[Narm|five times]]'' before they actually arrive.

* [[Punctuated for Emphasis]]: Just about every line out of Horatio's mouth. The other lines are [[One-Liner, Name. One-Liner.]].

** Alexx leaves the morgue in Season 6 to become an ER doctor. [[The Bus Came Back|She's occasionally appeared since then]], usually when one of the team have been injured in the line of duty.

* [[Quip to Black]]. Subverted on one occasion when the episode starts with Horatio's old friend on the bomb squad being killed in an explosion while he's outside. Caine, stunned, actually takes ''off'' his shades and says absolutely nothing.

* [[Sliding Scale of Shiny Versus Gritty]]: Very much on the shiny side.

* [[Split Screen]]: Common in Season 5.

* [[Stealth Hi Bye]]: Horatio is a master of the Stealth Hi.

* [[Stock Footage]]: The aerial establishing shots over Miami.

* [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute]]: Jessie Cardoza replacing {{spoiler|Eric Delko; now a moot point.}}

* [[Take Five]]

** Then again, on at least one occasion a "corpse" was still alive!

* [[Team Dad]]: Horatio to his team members, though he doesn't really go into full [[Papa Wolf|berserker]] mode unless Alexx or Calleigh are in danger. Meaning if you're a male member of Horatio's team... sucks to be you.

* [[Too Soon]]: Wolf teasing Walter about going skydiving while examining a victim who died when his parachute was tampered with. Walter's response is "Hey, let's ask him how it was -- what, too soon?"

* [[Unflinching Walk]]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d54Ok6Uz_A Horatio doesn't look at explosions.]

* [[Unholy Matrimony]]: The [[Happily Married]] couple who {{spoiler|kidnapped women (with the wife posing as a fellow victim in order to relish the sight of hope dying in the victims' eyes) in order to strengthen their marriage. If I recall correctly that episode was titled [[wikipedia:Folie %C3%A0 deux|"Folie A Deux"]] and the wife was the crazy one who "infected" the husband.}}

* [[Verbal Tic]]:

* [[Wham! Episode]]: {{spoiler|As of the Season 9 finale, Horatio's been shot (for real this time), and Natalia's been locked in the trunk of a car which has just been shoved off the pier. The episode ends with her screaming and pleading for someone, anyone to answer their phone as she frantically calls for help (but gets nothing but busy signals).}}

* [[Whole-Plot Reference]]: ''"Dude, Where's My Groom?"'' was explicitly inspired by ''[[The Hangover]]'', except [[Bloodier and Gorier]] (naturally) and the groom might be dead. The commercial even uses a few lines from the film.

* [[Yakuza]]: Featured in an episode, but only called "Sakiru" for some reason. This is the ''least'' of the episode's [[Did Not Do the Research]].