stunt_muppet

Yes, actually, I am still mad about that. The boy managed to go back to work like three weeks after someone shot him in the head. What, do they not give you paid leave for brain injuries?

Anyway, this was kind of a weird episode. It didn't make me actually angry, but still. Weird.

For starters, watching the early seasons of Miami on my rerun diet made me realize just how flipping insane the cinematography has become. This show is starting to look like a Baz Luhrman film. Seriously. All it needs is a huge, colorful dance number featuring a Madonna cover and it'd fit right in. (Granted, I would find that rather amusing.) You know how I said I didn't mind one of the camera tricks in No Man's Land? The one where the screen went gray and paused on someone's face? I've changed my mind. They're just abusing it this week. I don't like it anymore.

However, far more obnoxious was the CGI sequence during Calleigh's ballistic analysis. Why are you showing us the gun loading? Why are you giving us three different shots of Cal pulling the trigger? We've seen it before. We know how it works. This does not need to be demonstrated again.

Also, ehn. Not a good pre-credits one-liner this week, Horatio. Not good. I mean, if you'd said it with just a mote of sarcasm in your voice - just something to indicate that the horrible pun in there was intentional - then it wouldn't have been so bad, but as it stands? No. However, in my eyes, Alexx came to the rescue with "Our murder weapon is...melting". I giggled far more than I should have.

Also, while you're here, Horatio, where were you this week? You kind of went missing roundabout the middle of the episode. And you got stuck with the five-minute throwaway case, too. (Didn't he? I may be confused.)

About that. Why exactly did they feel the need to include the dead body in the pile of dirt? Was that just to make the real estate guy look sketchy and suspicious? I mean, really. It had no bearing on the main case and it literally got wrapped up in ten minutes. I'm not even sure it stretched across a commercial break. Why include it at all?

I was fond of the exchange between Ryan and Eric at the beginning of the episode. Much though I grump about how Eric shouldn't be back at work yet, it's nice to see that at least we're remembering that his injury ever happened. I think their respective reactions were well-played: I like the fact that Ryan is trying to show Eric he empathizes with him and isn't judging him, but Eric's defensive reaction makes perfect sense to me as well (it's even in-character! Bonus!).

However, Ryan's commenting about his own injury rang some unfortunate alarm bells in my mind. When Ryan compared Delko's injury to his own, the first thing that came to my mind was "Yeah, Ryan, it's exactly like what happened to you. I.e. We're going to angst about it for the remainder of the season and then NO ONE WILL EVER MENTION IT AGAIN. Anger."

Also, I resume my one-woman petition for Ryan to get his Season 3 hairstyle back. Why do the people on the CSI franchise keep making hair decisions I disapprove of?

I preface my next point with three little words: Not. Enough. Frank. I suppose someone had to get shafted so that Alexx could get her extraordinary amount of screentime this week, but why'd it have to be Frank?

My next point is this: Why, exactly, is Natalia doing Horatio and Frank's job? Aren't they the ones who usually interrogate suspects? Even if they're not asking all the questions, one of them is usually at least there. Yes, I know, Horatio was interrogating someone else, but what about Frank? 

A corollary to the above: Oh, writers. You came so close. You had me honestly liking Natalia for a while there. And then you gave her that awful speech about how being a CSI makes you "notice differences". Ugh. That was not a good speech at all. If it was supposed to be cute, it didn't work. It just made her sound like a pompous know-it-all. Besides, you noticed one difference - the presence or absence of the anti-Rh antibody or whatever it was. Eric noticed the other one. Also, the CSIs typically don't get to gloat about how smart they are. They can inform the suspect that they're stupid, or they can indulge in a brief moment of "lab science pwns you" smugness, but the I'm-special gloating does not have a place in the interrogation room. Excise that immediately.

And again: what was with all the angst over Eric ordering the second antibody test? Even if there aren't antibodies in the blood sample, wouldn't that eliminate two of the three sisters from the crime scene and therefore implicate the last one? There wasn't any need for "this is the last blood sample" drama. Either way, you win.

Erm. Case. Not the best case ever, but not objectionable either. However, didn't those women say that they'd been pretending to be one person their entire lives? How would they do that? Wouldn't that mean that their parents would have had to pretend they were one person, too? Wow. No wonder they were messed up. 

I kind of liked how another twin sister kept emerging from the woodwork, adding another wrinkle yet at the same time answering a lot of questions. I particularly liked how they were all equally culpable for their "husband's" murder; I was worried that one of them would turn out to be the 'evil twin' undoing everyone's lives, and that might have been a bit more cliche then I could handle. 

Also, how many of you were just waiting for the Raymond references when Developer Guy talked about not telling his wife he was alive? Really, the guy might as well have said "By the way, Lieutenant, has anyone in your family faked their own death and not told their spouse?". At the very least, H could have informed him that pretending to be dead only makes things more complicated. 

As soon as Assistant Guy stepped out of line to talk to Horatio I knew he was guilty of something. Isn't there a less obvious way to bring him to our attention?

Awww, bebby at the end! *pokes its little bebby nose* I'm actually kind of glad his mommy(s) went to jail. What a strange life that kid would have led otherwise.

Um...what else, what else...eh, other new stuff's on this week. I shall at least make an effort to catch and review some of that too.