Television
Sep 30, 2011

THE CSI FRANCHISE RETURNS

I am a long-time fan of the CSI franchise. I follow both the CSI- NY and Miami series. So when the two returned to TV this past week, you bet my DVR was set to follow these detectives wherever their paths may go.

However, the Big Apple took a path back in time to Ground Zero. The premiere episode, debuting in line with the ten year anniversary of 9/11, decided to focus on this tragic day as its storyline. Not that I don’t applaud the show for tackling this historic moment, I was looking forward to the usual edge of my seat, mystery-solving fair. Instead the flashback-heavy episode, followed Detective Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise),who recently retired as the team’s boss and now works in a DNA lab helping to identify the “John and Jane Doe’s” of the 9/11 attacks. It is revealed that Taylor’s wife is one body that has yet to be recovered.

Although the show did throw in some additional story-lines, we spent most of the time seeing where each character was on that fated day ten years prior, and very little time solving any bigger mystery.  Instead of the usual satisfaction I feel in cracking the case…(I mean watching the team solve the case)…I was left with one lingering thought- whether Taylor’s “retirement” is permanent.

Back in the sunshine state, we pick up were we left off…in a cold ocean! At the end of last season Horatio Cane (David Caruso) was shot and bleeding badly, while Natalia Boa Vista (Eva La Rue) was trapped in the trunk of a car that plunged into the ocean. We open with a  near-death Hoartio hallucinating about his dead wife who promptly tells him to return to his life…which he does just in time to miraculously dives into the ocean and free Natalia. Both survive. Not only do they survive, after a brief hospital visit, they are off to hunt down the serial killer and his conspirators who started these events. In true CSI fashion, the team comes out on top.

Call me a traditionalist but seeing David Caruso save the day while flashing his arrogant grin and dark sunglasses is exactly what the doctor ordered and the reason the show is in its healthy tenth season.