Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Real CSI: Miami’ On CBS, A Docuseries Where Real Murder Cases Are Solved With The Help Of Real Miami-Area Crime Scene Investigators

The Real CSI: Miami, created by CSI‘s Anthony Zuiker, is a docuseries that shows real-life murder cases solved with the help of real Miami-area crime scene investigators, with the science behind some of the methods they use explained as the story of the investigations move forward.

THE REAL CSI: MIAMI: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We see the intro to the old series CSI: Miami, then we switch to reenactments of real-life cases. “In this series, we’ll explore crime through an entirely new lens,” says a deep-voiced narrator.

The Gist: In the first episode, a double murder in the Florida Keys is examined: The 2015 deaths of Tara Rosada and Carlos Ortiz. At the crime scene, two 45-caliber shells were found, and the ballistics on those shells will help connect investigators to the gun that was used to kill them. The first notion was that one of the two victims shot the other then killed themselves, but when the gun wasn’t found at the scene, that theory went out the window.

Through interviews with police, CSI investigators and journalists who worked the case, we get insight into the steps taken during the investigation. One thing that did catch the notice of the crime scene investigators: An Android phone was found at the scene, but there was an Apple charger plugged into the wall. So two key pieces of evidence needed to be found: The gun used in the murders and the iPhone that was taken from the scene.

When Rosada’s ex-husband arrived at the scene, law enforcement immediately turned their attention to him. They had recently divorced, and Tara had an order of protection out on him due to domestic violence issues. But the ex had an alibi.

Investigators got a break when a gun found by a snorkeler in a local canal turned out to be the murder weapon, and logic followed that the iPhone would be nearby. But the key information investigators got was from Tara’s Android phone and recovered footage from a DVD-R in the neighbor’s security camera system.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? In look and feel, The Real CSI: Miami doesn’t feel much different than 48 Hours or Dateline.

Our Take: The first episode of The Real CSI: Miami might not have shown the full potential of what this series can be about. Much of the investigation into the murders of Rosado and Ortiz involved as much standard police work as it did CSI-style science. One of the keys to the case, which was recovering the erased security camera footage, was actually done by the FBI, and there was little explanation as to how it was done.

Look, we get it; the show needs to keep moving, as it needs to incorporate an entire murder investigation into a 42-minute runtime. And. believe us, real murder investigations don’t progress as quickly or as neatly as they do on a scripted CBS procedural.

In fact, that’s what we want to see a lot of in this show. Yes, we want to see where science like DNA analysis and other things that are either new or little known opens up avenues for the team to investigate. But we also want to see instances where the science proves to be inconclusive or doesn’t yield definitive clues.

The first episode dives into the science behind the “fingerprint” left on bullet shells by a gun, though anyone who’s watched a procedural in the last 50 years knows about how ballistics are examined. What we hope is that subsequent episodes will each examine a different aspect of the scientific study crime scene investigators use to gain knowledge about what happend.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Post-script text mentions that the person who was convicted of the murders had his conviction overturned due to how evidence was excluded from his trial, and that as of February he was awaiting a new trial.

Sleeper Star: Katelyn Farley, Tara Rosada’s sister, was able to succinctly and articulately talk about her sister’s life and her grief after Tara’s murder.

Most Pilot-y Line: Somehow, the investigators were able to discern the year, make and model of an SUV seen on the recovered security video, despite the fact that the video quality wasn’t great and the truck was mostly in shadow. We would have loved to hear about identifying cars by their silhouette, because that was something we had never heard of before.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Real CSI: Miami is perfectly fine as a true crime docuseries. We just hope that at least some of the episodes take deeper dives into the science of what these investigators look at than the first episode did.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.