CSI Miami “Tipping Point” A New Low

What can I say except “”Tipping Point” was probably the most inane CSI Miami (CBS) episode of the season – so far. I say so far because we still have more of the season to come and it could get worse, if that is even possible.

This episode was called “Tipping Point” because it centered on a murder and the people involved afterwards who either act as tipsters or have connections to tipsters. This episode was heavy with repetitive flashbacks, red herrings, and convenient evidence, plus it had the added benefit of helpful criminals, and lazy construction workers.

The show starts with a scene of man, who appears to be drugged or injured, in the back seat of a car, and later, he seems to be buried in a wooden box that is unearthed by a construction company. While a construction auger digs deep, it pierces the wooden box and kills the man, who turns out to be a local reverend who is helping to rehabilitate neighborhood kids. My questions are: Does it seem odd to anyone that for the first day of construction (as the worker said it was) that they would be drilling holes with an auger? And, why would someone decide to use his auger in a place just because it looked like the dirt was loose and it would be easy to begin there? What exactly was he drilling into the ground for? Wouldn’t there be plans on where to drill, where to dig, and where to use earthmovers? Construction workers don’t just arrive and decide to work in an area just because it looks like an easy place to start.

As they investigate the murder further, the CSI team makes a few references to tipsters and basically says they are worthless “crackpots.” If this is the case, why do police departments so often ask for help from tipsters? Of course, in this case, the tipster really isn’t the original tipster, but she is just being fed the information by someone else so she can collect the money. How nice that the original tipster used this woman and put her life in danger to further his own agenda of saving the neighborhood from local gangs.

Of course, we have to have a red herring. Natalia (Eva La Rue) decides to help a woman secure the decent burial for her daughter that the woman had original paid for but where the funeral director wanted to charge more. How convenient for Natalia that when she is talking to the woman about this great act that she did to get the woman an upgrade on the funeral service, a gun goes off in the next room. It just so happens that the woman’s young son was given the gun that had ultimately shot the reverend. An amazing turn of events!

And lucky for Horatio Caine (David Caruso) that he managed long ago to touch the life of one Hector Salazar (Jon Seda), so Hector would want to help turn his own life around and help save the ‘hood. When Hector was “inside” there was a kid who killed a guy in his cell, and usually no one cares about those people in prison. But not Horatio! He cares! He was a cop then, who didn’t look at things “that way” and helped prove that the killing was self-defense and “gave him justice.” Hector now wants to help Horatio to return the favor. Horatio puts his trust in Hector, saying “Don’t disappoint me.” Amazing! Horatio is the man with the golden touch, so golden that he must constantly wear sunglasses just to keep himself from being blinded while looking at himself.

One of these days, I am going to try to quantify the amount of time that the show spends on worthless flashbacks. How many times did we have to see the man get skewered by the auger, or the bomb detonation? Did we have to see Hector getting released from prison and them giving him his belongings? Speaking of a waste of time, as Horatio enters the soon to be exploded home, Delko (Adam Rodriguez) tells him that he only has 30 seconds to get the person out of there. So Horatio wastes time untying the woman, yet he still picks her up and carries her out. Now why would you waste time untying someone if you were going to just pick them up and carry them out anyway? I think Horatio took longer than 30 seconds, by the way.

Then, of course, another example of the fine team spirit of the CSIs, when Wolfe (Jonathan Togo) states, “That’s Delko’s job.” Also, Wolfe’s wardrobe choice of an orange striped shirt and blue tie proves again that he gets his clothes from Ringling Brothers. And isn’t it amazing that the house was blown up in such a huge explosion but it still seemed that the entire outside framing of the house was completely intact? I suppose that the gang knew how to only do a “special effects” explosion where only the windows get blown out. An explosion that looked that large to blow out those windows in that manner would have shown more structural damage. But that house looked really good afterwards. A miracle!

All in all, this episode was worse than mediocre, it was downright awful. The story was weak, the acting stiff and lifeless, and the dialog was fit for a grade schooler. A sure sign of lazy writing is when the show has to use what seems like half of its airtime to show flashbacks. I’d say this episode was aptly named “Tipping Point" because they just tipped themselves over the edge into the deep pit of mediocrity.

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