'CSI Miami' season premiere: Realism not included!

Last night’s seventh season premiere of CSI: Miami reminded me of when I was eight years old, playing with my Fisher-Price figures, and making up little stories that would typically end with everyone getting trampled by a dinosaur or some such nonsense. The story arcs playing out on my bedroom floor made sense to no one but me, and any sense of logic and/or continuity was subject to my whim, and that was okay. I was eight. My tricked-out Fisher-Price barn door was not mooing for 16 million people.

The problem with David Caruso’s sun-drenched CSI spinoff, of course, is that actually is viewed by such a massive audience, and therefore should not play out as if it were written by a committee of third-graders shouting: “And then Horatio could get shot!” “But then it turns out he’s not dead!” “Yeah, because he staged the shooting so the gang members out to kill him would let down their guard!” “And Horatio needs to stop them because they’ve just gotten shipments of ‘fused alloy’ bullets!” “And his ex-wife’s husband could be dealing the bullets!” “And in the end the boat could blow up with a huge explosion!” “But then they can’t find the body!” “So Horatio takes off his shades!”

Seriously, I know CSI: Miami is supposed to be pure escapism, but I remember a time (back in the early seasons) when its plots made sense, and didn’t leave me howling with laughter. (The night’s funniest sight gag: Adam Rodriguez and Emily Procter trying to trace a gangster’s phone number using a hologram-esque computer program that looked like it came off the set of Minority Report.)

Not that it matters, but here are a few of my burning questions from last night’s ep:Why, after accidentally allowing violent felon/gang leader (José Zúñiga) to escape, did Eric take a quick meeting with Horatio in a parking garage, then interview an unrelated suspect, before returning to the scene and using a trail of blood to try to track down said baddie? (Like, wouldn’t you rather the escaped con only had a five-minute head start instead of a five-hour one?) Why, if Horatio wanted to create the illusion that he was dead (even among his co-workers) did he show up at the police station and chat with Eric after he’d interrogated a suspect? And on a similar note, why did Horatio think that taking all his meetings in an open stretch of swampland left him immune to detection? Finally, where can I buy that hellaciously stylin’ red-and-white patterned shirt Rodriguez wore throughout the entire episode? (Seriously, I want to know!)