CSI: Miami – “Getting Axed” – review

What sets the CSI franchise apart from other police procedurals is the science. Yes, there are characters we like, and we enjoy being a fly buzzing around, watching them do their thing. Largely, however, it’s a cop show with science as the lead protagonist. That was the case last night. The problem occurs when the key piece of evidence is blood spatter. It’s important, of course, but it doesn’t make for riveting television.

“Getting Axed,” the seventeenth episode of the season, was a run-of-the-mill, crime-of-the-week entry in CSI: Miami’s eighth season. After Horatio and Delko went on their LA field trip last week, we were back in Miami full-time. The episode opened with Valerie, one of a company’s workers, getting a surprise party thrown for her. She was expecting to get axed–that is, fired. Sheepish laughter and smiles when she realizes it’s a surprise party for all the birthdays of the quarter. Cut to Jeffrey Lipton and his harrowing ride down an elevator shaft. The car careens downward, coming to a stop at the bottom. He’s okay, stunned a bit, and he’s getting a blood shower. Atop the elevator car is a body with an axe buried deep in the head.

As a nice surprise, Tripp is on the scene with Horatio and Ryan. They interview Lipton, who gives a name to the corpse. With this information, Calleigh and Jesse scan the nineteenth-floor office and determine the place of the attack (near the elevator door), the weapon (fire axe), and a curious piece of extra evidence (dye gel on the fire alarm; the better to prevent false alarms). After our three main suspects (AKA the same three leads we saw in the opening party scene), Valerie, the birthday girl, gets singled out.

She tells Calleigh she needed more than the sixty minutes for lunch to get her boyfriend from the airport. Walter ain’t buying it. Still doesn’t explain, he said, why all the ruckus about the fire alarm. Why not just take the extra time? The Office Nazi, Valerie says. That’s what Renee was. No one liked her because she was the eyes and ears of the corporate bosses.

Thus, with her membership in the Nazi party established, Renee becomes to the viewers that one, special person most offices have whom everyone wants to just go away. The nosy one. The busybody. Many people wanted her gone and, as the show progresses, we get to learn who and why.

Back at the lab, an excited Dr. Tom Loman determines Renee was poisoned for an extended period of time. Valerie eventually cops to that. The mail boy–a young man named Teddy, played by Adam Wylie, a former child actor in one of my favorite 1990s shows, Picket Fences–is accused by Horatio of being culpable. How else do you explain why Teddy was walking around up inside the ceiling? Because he lives there. Oh, right! Got it. Well, the long and short of it is this:  Teddy eats the leftovers his fellow office mates leave. Thus, young master Teddy is poisoned as well.

Valerie cops to the poison and, in the best couplet of the entire episode, Valerie tries to justify her crime:

Valerie: It was just a teensy weensy bit [of poison]
Calleigh: Well, it’s just a teensy weensy felony.

I have to say that bit of dialogue was probably the highlight of the episode, which didn’t really go anywhere. The mystery was not too compelling, at least for a show that prides itself–justifiably so–on presenting interesting ways to kill people and interesting ways to discover the truth. Being shown a dead body in an elevator, an ax protruding from the top of the skull, is pretty dang interesting, all things considered. The execution of the show just wasn’t there.

What was really missing was the personal side of our protagonists. I understand that not every episode needs huge emotional stakes of our heroes. This episode, however, really felt as if the actors were phoning in their portrayals. No sparks, even with more screen time for Tripp and his Trippisms.

Needless to say, the CSIs connected the dots. Ryan finds a death threat in Renee’s desk. He, along with Calleigh and Jesse, comb through Renee’s house. They find motor oil (which turns out to belong to a fellow co-worker’s vintage Ford pickup) and a record of monthly payments to a local cemetery. The caretaker tells the CSIs that Renee paid him to keep up the grave marker of Paige Shoreham. Later, we learn that Paige killed herself after Renee, in her position as some CEO of a former company, fired Paige in a cost-cutting move. Paige leaped to her death even though she was engaged to (come on now, people, you know the CSI rule: all suspects are introduced in the show. Who was engaged to Paige?) Jeffrey Lipton. Our heroes bring him in, and he caves very quickly after being presented with the blood spatter evidence.

As if realizing they hadn’t done any character moments, the wrters throw in a pointless epilogue. Tripp, Walter, Ryan, and Jesse all punch out and get on one of the police station elevators. The lights flicker. Tripp exits, then Walter, followed by Ryan, and, finally Jesse. Fade to black. Heh, heh?

Anyway, as I said, this was a lackluster show last night. Nothing spectacular, nothing really new, nothing to write home about. I know not every episode can be stunning, but this one, coming after the highly entertaining episode last week, just seemed to miss all the marks.

Am I alone in this feeling?