2002's top TV show CSI spins-off with two guest stars close to my heart

 

I've never watched an episode of CSI and I'll attribute that to two things, one of which is functional and one is kind of inexplicably petty. First up: I just wasn't watching a lot of TV during that time. Survivor, yes, but I'm hard-pressed to think of what else. Gone were the heady university days of recording a number of shows on a VHS (including NYPD Blue, which will be an important detail soon enough) to watch on the weekends when I came home from campus.

The other reason: I've just never liked watching William Peterson. I'll bet he's a nice guy, but I didn't care much for Manhunter and I skipped Fear because Mark Wahlberg sure wasn't going to convince me. 

So, now that I'm browsing for an episode of the year's top-rated show to watch online I discover one called Cross Jurisdictions, which I learn will serve as the introduction to their Miami spin-off. That's reason enough to pick that episode, but add in David Caruso making his triumphant return to TV after departing NYPD Blue for nothing much more than Kiss of Death and it was an easy choice.

Then along came one more surprise that turned this into the kind of slam dunk viewing that makes me question a cosmic plan.

The show itself was fine. It had those groovy inside-the-body shots that I remember first seeing used in Three Kings. It was quippy, but was also playing itself off as really smart with an intricate, artistic murder as the hook. It was sort of like the movie Seven if it was made by MTV.

The funniest stuff, unintentionally funny but necessary, came as the Miami team all made their introductions to the Vegas squad because, of course, they were really introducing themselves to the audience. To that extent, each of them had a little character moment as they verbalized some idiosyncrasy meant to endear them to us. And, hey, they got ten seasons out of Miami so obviously people bought in.

Okay, here's the main event: in the opening sequence, there was a party where a familiar woman was flirting with John Kapelos, but when she called him "Chief" I forgot about trying to place how I knew her and instead tried to remember if Kapelos played some kind of police chief to Steve Martin's fire chief in Roxanne, and whether this could be some sort of unauthorized sequel. I hope not, mind you, because Kapelos was dead within minutes. 

As luck would have it, the familiar woman returned later on and this time it hit me dead-on: this was the one, the only, the legendary Red-Blooded American Girl herself, Kari Wuhrer. 

Of course, those that know her will definitely know her from other things, but I will always know her from exactly both of the mid-90s movies that I worked on as a driver and general slave labourer: Red Blooded American Girl 2 (later titled without the "American Girl") and The Undertaker's Wedding. While the latter became notable because of the young kid named Adrian Brody in the cast, Red Blooded 2 was most famous to me because I managed to park my red Chevy Cavalier in a spot where I knew it would end up in the background of a shot, and I later terrified Burt Young in that same car as I turned a corner on set and he stopped right in front of me, deer-in-the-headlights-frozen-in-his-tracks, while I hit the brakes and, by not running him over, gifted the world one more performance as Pauly in Rocky Balboa about ten years later.

Thanks, David Caruso, for inspiring me to pick an episode that served up a nice trip down memory lane.