‘CSI: Miami’ is watchable, yet horrible

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What may be most notable about the series is how it places its visual aesthetic above all else. If the Las Vegas original shocked viewers with its rapid-zoom close-ups of body parts and three-dimensional examinations of the origins of injuries and wounds, "CSI: Miami" shocks viewers with its stunning version of Miami. In high-definition, it's intoxicating, with bright colors that scream for attention.

It's HDTV porn, and high-definition television manufacturers should require big-box electronic stores to tune their sets to A&E, which repeats the show with ridiculous frequency.

Nothing looks quite like "CSI: Miami" does, nor does any other show make Miami look so stunning and flawless, whether the camera is scanning bikinied bodies by a pool or surveying high-rise condominiums from a helicopter. Showtime's "Dexter," which also follows a forensic scientist (although one who happens to be a serial killer), makes Miami look appealing, but it is nowhere near as fake and fantasyland-like as the CBS version.

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Their industrial, glass-filled office and lab spaces are even more visually interesting than the city. Mostly, scenes in the lab are just an excuse to show off the exceptional if implausible lighting design, which bathes every space with yellows and oranges, blues and greens, as if the Care Bears decorated "The Matrix."

The coroner's lab, for example, has multi-colored spotlights illuminating the wall and different colored lights in each of the cabinets. It's stunning and apparently functional, and what's wrong with that, really, even if it's not realistic?

The people benefit from the aesthetics, too. Cast members are frequently backlit with blinding light, often so brightly that their ears become translucent and individual hairs stand out. The shadows make them look like subjects in carefully composed photographs used in high-end magazine advertisements. Even the grizzled or unattractive benefit from the super-saturated colors that surround and cover them.

Examining all of this closely, however, causes it to fall apart just as easily as the plots do. For example, when a CSI is interviewing a suspect, both are backlit despite the fact that they're sitting across a table from one another. Were the show's production to follow the laws of physics, only one would be backlit, and the other would have a brightly lit face. Instead, here the light source changes places depending upon the camera's position.

But on "CSI: Miami," aesthetics always trump reality. Considering how beautiful the result is, that's a forgivable crime.

Andy Dehnart is a writer who publishes reality blurred, a daily summary of reality TV news. Find him on Facebook.

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