One liners, cliff hangers, cop worship, absurd technological leaps like a cross referencing database for butterfly wings in the state of Florida - CSI: Miami is nobody's idea of high art. I always thought it was pretty to look at, though. How odd is it that Miami was revived after a 90s pop cultural lull, both in the present and nostalgia for the past? GTA: Vice City made the music cool again and attached it to a stylized, neon soaked backdrop.
Is time moving so quickly that we're ready for 2000s Miami nostalgia? Digital cameras, cranked saturation oranges and cyan blue, Dwyane Wade, Shottas, Miami Vice (2006), Rick Ross music videos, Driv3r...an intersection that some artist will inevitably decode.
The first episode shows how complicated nostalgia for the 2000s is, how contemporary culture was shaped and formed by reactions to reactions to reactions. A disconnected Floridian equivalent of a bayou is the opening shot, and a poorly rendered CGI plane viscerally crashes into the background, smoke plumes and the dramatic music cues. The pilot episode aired in 2002, how do we ensure that our spin off is a success? To recreate, relive and reexperience 9/11 again. Call it the Jack Bauer method.
With 24 and Bauer, the show is undeniably more akin to our lives today when stripped down to the studs: Always on the move, cellphones and gadgets attached to the hip, real time mattering more than the past and the future, either keep up or be swallowed up by moving parts. It was easily the most popular American show of the mid oughts, yet it's an afterthought to zoomers who cling to shows that less represent the logistics of their characters worlds, but the perspectives of the people - Sopranos, Breaking Bad, The Wire.
First responders and police officers portrayed in black and white as heroes who prevent the subway you commute to work with from blowing up almost reads as parody, but it was at one point the consensus in entertainment and mainstream politics. Families huddled around the television, watching the good guys torture brown people or shoot housewives above the knee cap to protect freedom. CSI: Miami having the same casting demographics of a daytime soap opera in Ireland is another hurdle to jump with younger viewers.
With how time continues to accelerate, as does degradation, CSI: Miami was eaten by the same cancer that consumed the Simpsons, taking the two or three traits of the show that are unique and adding about seven layers of hyperbole to it. The first season watched concurrently will give the impression that the origjnal creators left the show or died, it's much more grounded, without the constant explosive action and cringe inducing dialogue. It honestly reminded me of a CSI equivalent of Burn Notice at times.
Give the first season a second chance and proceed with caution from there. No guidebook, vaporwave album or t-shirt prepare you to take in this side of the 2000s, which makes it fascinating to watch. I wonder how Alias has aged?