CSI Miami: Season 7

DVD REVIEW

When it comes to CSI Miami there is one thing you can count on; from the moment Roger Daltrey screams “Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah” until Horatio Caine (David Caruso) puts those infamous sunglasses back on you won’t be bored. Season seven opens where season six left off with Caine shot dead on an airport tarmac and the reluctantly believed theory that CSI Ryan Wolfe (Jonathan Togo) is the main suspect. About the only revelation that is not a surprise is that of course Horatio isn’t dead. Then again this is the same series that killed off the much-liked Tim Speedle (Rory Cochrane) character after we grew to know and love him, and allowed Dr. Alexx Woods (Khandi Alexander) to wander off to a calmer job at a local hospital, so no one can really be considered safe. By the end of the season this point is driven home quite forcefully when popular and loved CSI Eric Delko (Adam Rodriguez) is presumed dead in the Everglades and then subsequently leaves the force in the opening weeks of season eight.

This is the season where Caine discovers his ex girlfriend Julia Winston (Elizabeth Berkley) is married to his new nemesis and subsequent episodes flesh out her drug and financial problems. Horatio also gets his newly discovered son Kyle (Evan Ellingson) a job in order to keep him out of trouble, by having him join the CSI team in the Autopsy Lab. With the exit of Alexx from autopsy comes young Dr. Tara Price (Megalyn Echikunwoke) whose first case involves a man who crashed a party fully engulfed in flames, apparently from the inside out. As the season progresses, and just as you get to know, trust and like her, Horatio’s son Kyle discovers that Tara is stealing prescription narcotics from her crime victim’s belongings, leading to her being fired.

Along the way, new ways of killing people are found. Amongst the more interesting methods are using a high-rise construction crane to murder a witness hiding out in the top of an office building who is due to testify against a well-known crime boss. A man is dissolved in an innocent-looking swimming pool filled with acid, and a designer original dress has been rigged to explode in order to punish a shoplifter.

Calliegh Duquesne (Emily Procter) and Delko’s romance gradually heats up to a boil. Russian crime families play a large role in Eric’s back-story this season starting with a corpse that has part of a man’s neck tattoo… in its stomach. As the Russian mafia aspect develops throughout the season, it eventually leads to Delco betraying his colleagues and to his cliffhanger “demise.”

Despite the computers getting fancier and the gadgets getting more fantastic, the technology still takes a back seat to the mental detective work required to crack each crime; which is as it should be. As with the previous seasons, this set includes an alternate soundtrack in Spanish, interesting episode commentaries, a wide-screen format, and it includes behind the scenes DVD extras that are worth checking out.

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