US TV

Review: CSI: Miami 5.1

CSI Miami in Rio

In the US: Mondays, 10pm (ET/PT), CBS

In the UK: It’s everywhere. It’ll probably be beamed inside your eyelids by the end of next year.

Characters re-cast: 0

Major characters gotten rid of: 0

Major new characters: 0

Format change percentage: 10%

New hair styles: 0

They really pushed the boat out on this one. For a show that doesn’t even get as far as Miami for its regular filming, you have to at least admire their willingness to ship some of the cast and crew out to Rio de Janeiro for this opening episode.

But oh my, was it ever stupid, even by CSI: Miami standards.

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Third episode verdict: Standoff

Well, I’ve stuck with it, through to the third episode of Standoff. I wasn’t impressed much by the pilot, but it wasn’t totally awful. Since then, it’s improved slightly and it’s revealed a good title sequence that’s more than a little bit inspired by Bullshit!‘s, but it’s still not enough to make me watch more.

The plots aren’t quite as offensively stupid as the pilot episode’s, but they’re still pretty unrealistic and silly; the relationship stuff is being toned down, but again, pretty unrealistic and silly. The characters aren’t really very involving, either. Oh well.

All in all, pretty average, despite Ron Livingston. One to avoid.

US TV

The Conversation: the series

The ConversationSlightly old news this, but classic Coppola movie, The Conversation, is being turned into a TV series. I’ll have to pause and regroup before deciding what to do with that information. It’s a great film, but how do you do that kind of thing weekly? Not without changing the whole premise, at which point, why is it called The Conversation and not just ‘Eavesdropping’ or ‘Bugging’?