Comedy
Dead Boy Detectives
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
Lieutenant Horatio Caine first strolled onto Miami’s beaches in 2002, with his badge and his sunglasses leading the way. He’s a squinty-eyed former NYPD homicide detective who fits like a hand in the latex glove of the Miami crime scene. There he can squint in earnest from the tropical glare and lull suspects into revealing their secrets with his gravel-voiced, half-whispered inquiries. His hard-working team is made up of a variety of specialists including ballistics pro Det. Calleigh Duquesne, fingerprint and drug identification expert Det. Eric Delko and DNA analyst Natalia Boa Vista.
In 2003, CSI creator, writer and producer Anthony E. Zuiker responded to early criticism of his show’s seedy, explicit and violent depiction of crime scene investigations. “We don’t want to exclude families,” he said. “We don’t want to exclude children. The first family that turns off the show because it’s too dark—that’s catastrophic to us.”
Well. Catastrophe has come and gone more than once since then.
CSI’s trademark is “big-screen quality meets small-screen drama,” and CSI: Miami is no slacker when it comes to slick production, innovative photography and intriguing storylines. And though dialogue and character development sag, where this perennial Top-10 drama really lapses is in establishing a moral grip. Its brazen “show, don’t tell” philosophy can wreak some serious havoc.
For example, nine years in, this spin-off has already spun through more than 200 episodes by combining cutting-edge forensic science and old-fashioned police footwork with grisly murder-reenactment visuals. Rather than simply referencing the details of various murders, Caine and his team walk us through decapitations, asphyxiations and stabbings—over and over again—as new evidence comes to light. Repeated, horrific flashbacks come complete with everything but blood actually dripping from the remote.
Then there’s the gritty realism of Miami’s underbelly, depicted week by week via plots that run the gamut from gang and domestic violence to sadomasochistic sex to drug and alcohol abuse to child pornography.
Without question, this is a show that seeks out justice, heralds human rights, and holds up faithfulness and integrity as honorable traits. But CSI: Miami also gratuitously wallows in the worst things people do to each other.
“Wheels Up”
The CSI team investigates a local roller derby when a hard-hitting derby girl is found beaten to death in the bathroom after a match. There’s no shortage of suspects. Could she have been killed by a rink rival? Or could the perp be the fanboy brother of an ex-skater who was crippled during competition? When the techs discover calcified internal evidence of domestic abuse, however, the case skates off in a whole new direction.
This tale gives viewers a predictable share of misdirecting twists and turns along with a bruising look at the skating “grrrls” of the roller derby. Scenes show skaters slamming and throwing one another about. But the bruising is accompanied by other messier sights, including internal blood gushes from a torn aorta, snapping bone breaks and blood being ladled out of an open chest cavity like so much soup at dinner.
Language includes uses of “a‑‑,” “b‑‑ch” and “h‑‑‑.” Women wear hot pants and cleavage-baring tops. And the concluding scene implies that Lt. Caine is set to viciously beat a man suspected of abusing his girlfriend.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
An elf mage contemplates on connection and regret as she watches her human friends grow old and pass away.
