CSI: Miami. My brain has melted.

After working on orders all day, I just wanted to relax in front of the T.V. last night. But there was nothing on. Didn't really want to get into a 2 hour movie. Saw some ads for Miami CSI, which are simultaneously ridiculous and alluring.

So, against my past experience and better judgment, I watched it.

It was awful. Just horrid. Sloppy dreck. Badly written, (both dialogue and plot) , badly directed, badly filmed (why actually film anything, just throw the drenched reds and yellows at us), badly acted (Caruso drives me crazy and the other actors appear to be going through the motions with faint tinges of embarrassment.) Even the set design was awful: for a warehouse, it looks like they threw a table into the middle of the floor and put a few cardboard boxes on it.

When we first started watching it, Linda asked: "Which CSI is this?"

"I don't know, but if there is a girl in a bikini in the first 30 seconds, it's Miami."

Sure enough, 20 seconds later a girl in a negligee answers the door.

The plot? It involved -- get this -- heroin being molded into dolls for transport (ludicrously white dolls, cause it's heroin, you know, unlike the normal pink dolls). How fresh!
I don't think I've seen that Macguffin since, oh, 1979 or so.

The dialogue? It consisted of Caruso's grandpappy voice saying to the young offender: "You really shouldn't do drugs. They are bad for you." Stuff like that.

Speaking of set design. The lab consists of plexiglass and blinking lights, just like the bridge on Star Trek -- around the year, 1969.

I'm not a technical person, but this show made me feel hip. So they find the offender's computer (you know, with all the information they need on one laptop) which, gasp, the password is encrypted!! (not the actual material).

(The F.B.I. takes away the actual laptop, but not before one of the techs uses a flashdrive the size of a book to download the information -- seriously, it was like the size of briefcase, and the F.B.I. guys didn't notice, which means they're even stupider than CSI. Miami, which is a scary, scary thought.)

So they have 2 tries to get the right password. One guy stares at a screen, and comes up with a word. (Don't ask how -- it's magic.)

Oh, my gosh it doesn't work. Oh, no!

The computer conveniently shows them they have only 30 seconds to come up with the password. Oh, the tension!!!

The guy stares at the screen some more, and with 5 seconds left, he blurts out, "That's not even a word!" Then he throws out a combination of letters, numbers and symbols, which -- wow, what a relief !-- open all the treasures of the kingdom. Take that, druggies!

Yep. The big technical revelation is that the password's "not...even...a....word!"



Who watches this stuff, and why? I have a new rule, the 80/80 rule. You have to have an I.Q. of under 80, or be over 80 years of age.

(Or, you know, watch it accidentally. I swear I didn't mean to do it.

Dear god. I have paid the price.....my brain has melted.....)

Linda noticed (I've mentioned before, she's a continuity hawk.) They show the murderer's feet early in the show, and he's wearing black sneakers. At the end of the show, they show the same scene, with the murderer in full -- and he's wearing brown sneakers. Doh!

"Wow," she says. "Those CSI guys are getting older, fatter and balder."

But that's a personal attack, and I won't go there.