In A World of nasty crimes, only one man can ensure that the women of Miami continue to be able to wear bikinis and sunbathe without corpses washing ashore. That man...
wears sunglasses.
Yeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhh!
CSI Spin Off, set in Miami. Horatio Caine (
played by David Caruso) takes the role of the guy spouting the
Grissom One Liner,
which he always does
after
putting his sunglasses on - wonderfully parodied by Weebl and Bob
here. Horatio differs from Grissom by being a complete and utter unrepentant dick. Unless you're under 15 and have just survived a horrible crime, in which case he's your best and most compassionate friend.
The show uses its Miami setting to tell different stories to its Vegas counterpart, namely more water-based mysteries, i.e. stories involving dead people on boats and people fleeing Cuba. 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. 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 a firearm.
Probably what would result if the writers of
Starsky And Hutch were told
'Stop that! This is
serious, goddammit!'.
Strictly speaking this is an ensemble show, like the other
CSIs, but one character dominates the show.
This show provides examples of:
- Atonement Detective - (Caine)
- Bad
Blue Orange Lighting
- Butt Monkey & Chew Toy: Eric Delko. The universe hates him. His sister got shot to get at Horatio, and died. He got shot in the head (again someone trying to get to Horatio. Feeling a pattern yet?) but survives, albeit with several side effects. He's been in trouble with internal affairs over his sister's use of medicinal marijuana, had a girlfriend who was the jealous clingy type who wanted to snipe his sister (she got beaten to it by another sniper). He goes to a nightclub, the place burns down. Every lawyer in Miami tries to have him seen as incompetent after his bullet to the head incident. Said bullet made him forget his sister's death, meaning he had to grieve all over again. His badge was once stolen and used to commit a murder. If crap is going to hppen to a member of the team, there is a 80% chance it happens to Eric.
- Don't forget that while Speed's fate was worse for Speed himself, Eric was his best friend.
- California Doubling - Except for the season opening episodes, the show is not filmed in Miami (which may explain the random mountains out of nowhere).
- Chekhovs Gun - Speedle's gun, which he doesn't keep clean and misfired on him once (and earned him a stern talking to from Calleigh) before his fatal shooting.
- Chekhov MIA (Caine's brother)
- Click Hello - Horatio's favorite method of executing a Stealth Hi Bye on a perp.
- Coolest Club Ever
- Cool Shades
- Cold Opening - often featuring some of the most intense techno beats ever.
- The Coroner (Alexx, Price)
- Crime And Punishment Series
- Death Glare - Hohratio and Delko while Perp Sweating.
- Did Not Do The Research (I didn't know there were mountains in Miami! I guess I just wasn't observant stepping out of my house.)
- Diplomatic Impunity: One of the bad guys, naturally.
- Dramatic Landfall Shot
- Dropped A Bridge On Him
- Drugs Are Bad Horatio's son is now working in the coroner's office (don't ask me why) and Horatio suspects him of 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.
- Evil Is Sexy: Julia, Horatio's secret baby-mama, who doesn't wear a bra and had a neckline steadily lower over the course of a two-parter.
- Fanservice: 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 he would actually emote.
- Glasses Pull
- Grissom One Liner. 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.
- God Mode Sue: Horatio. Seriously. Name me ANYTHING he's not capable of doing. He's a bomb expert, a flawless marksman, great driver, and seems to have a wider scientific knowledge than Grissom did.
- Gut Feeling
- Hot Scientist: Take your pick of the entire cast.
- 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.
- To be fair, how many cop shows have you seen where the detectives didn't record their questioning? That's right, all of them.
- 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.
- Meanwhile, up in New York, Mac Taylor responds to a suspect trying this by explaining how forensic evidence can establish that the wound was self-inflicted. The perp sulks a bit and asks for an aspirin.
- CSI (the original) does have a camera in the interrogation room. As seen in the episode where the suspect went ballistic and tried to strangle Grissom.
- Ill Girl - Eric's sister, who valiantly survives cancer only to get a terminal case of bullet to the gut; Horatio's brother also had an illegitimate daughter who is diagnosed with leukemia (I think), necessitating Horatio to tell the widow about this so that her son can be tested as a potential bone marrow donor.
- Its Personal
- Last Name Basis: Horatio to Ryan. It's never explained why Ryan is the only one to get this treatment from Horatio.
- Luke You Are My Father: Caine discovers he has a son he didn't know about. The mum is Jessie off Saved By The Bell.
- Mac Gyvering: When Calleigh gets kidnapped, she uses her l33t forensic skillz to give the team the identities of her kidnappers and her location.
- Man On Fire - The fate of at least two Corpses Of The Week, both related to siphoning gasoline out of the tank (but in different episodes)
- Memetic Mutation - Looks like...it's time for...the opening sequence.
- YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
- Mood Lighting, because it's always easier to find forensic evidence in a darkened room.
- Moral Dissonance: It's difficult to take anything Horatio says about the law seriously after seeing him cold-bloodedly murder an opponent he'd already disabled.
- Ms Fanservice: Natalia and Calleigh.
- Narm: YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
- Never Found The Body: The fate of at least one nemesis who has escaped the long arm of the law.
- Only One: The Miami cops cannot do ANYTHING - SWAT interventions, bomb disposal or police chase - without Horatio's direct presence and involvement.
- Perp Walk - Once Per Episode, in super dramatic Slo Mo.
- Poorly Disguised Pilot
- Real Song Theme Tune - "Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who, beginning right at the YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
- Ship Tease - Eric/Calleigh gets a big one when Calleigh dons a wedding veil while attempting to recreate the crime scene.
- Shoot The Hostage - Mostly averted, as Horatio is good enough to shoot the hostage taker.
- Sliding Scale Of Shiny Versus Gritty - Very much on the shiny side.
- So Bad Its Good (Everything ridiculous about the original CSI, distilled to pure form.)
- This troper maintains that it is in a category all of its own: So Bad It's Awesome.
- Split Screen (common in Season Five)
- Stealth Hi Bye - Horatio is a master of the Stealth Hi.
- Stock Footage - The aerial establishing shots over Miami.
- Take Five
- Team Dad - Horatio to his team members, though he doesn't really go into full berserker mode unless Alexx is in danger.
- Team Mom - Alexx, who'd even act motherly to the corpses.
- TemptingFate/Foreshadowing (When walking into a jewelry store with Horatio, Speed discusses expensive cars, disdaining them in favor of his bike. Caine mentions that he might need "something with doors" some day. Speed says he has plenty of time. He is fatally shot not five minutes later.)
- This Is Sparta - Just about every line out of Horatio's mouth. The other lines are One Liner Name One Liner.
- Translation Convention (maybe)
- Verbal Tic - Horatio has a tendency to repeat himself for emphasis.
- Vigilante Execution - A common hazard.
- We Are Everywhere - Subverted on at least one occasion when Horatio answers back that he'll be using the evidence they found out of the Perp Of the Week's stuff to hunt down every last member of this "we".
- What Do You Mean Its Not Awesome (YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH*is shot*)
- That and they edit looking at lab samples to make it look exciting.
