“CSI” was among the first TV hits of the 21st century. Along with “Survivor,” it boosted CBS to become the most-watched network and shook up its image as the dowdy home to bloodless procedurals like Dick Van Dyke’s “Diagnosis Murder.”
“CSI” challenged the assumptions on popular series like “Murder, She Wrote” or the U.K.’s “Midsomer Murders” that a conversation with the medical examiner was a minor part of the investigation. As murder mysteries had done since Agatha Christie, those series put the emphasis on bucolic scenery and quirky characters.
“CSI” made the medical examiner and his lab the center of the action. With the help of science, the corpse, absent life but teeming with bugs, bacteria, maggots and goo, did much of the “talking.” And the original “CSI” was set in Las Vegas, a land of anti-scenery, an artificial, air-conditioned oasis of distraction set in a desert. “CSI” was more bubonic than bucolic. But audiences didn’t mind.
While some, including yours truly, quibbled about the dehumanizing aspect of so much casual morbidity, one of the chief complaints about the original “CSI” was that its producer, Jerry Bruckheimer, had created the illusion of police work as not only gleaming, high-tech and futuristic, but based on a bottomless well of public funding.
Folks who worked in real police precincts and laboratories found the series and its spinoffs, including “CSI: Miami,” pretty laughable.
As if to set the record straight some 25 years later, Bruckheimer returns to present “The Real CSI: Miami” (10 p.m. CBS, TV-14). Broadcast as a docuseries, “Real” recalls actual murders and crimes in the south Florida city. Police officers and medical examiners present themselves without makeup and explain their investigations using the humdrum technology available to most mere mortals.
Smartphone recordings and convenience store surveillance cameras are a whole lot less sexy than the gadgetry William Petersen, Marg Helgenberger and David Caruso had at their disposal in the original incarnations of the show. But they get the job done.
In some ways, the ubiquity of surveillance and tracking provided by such everyday devices demonstrates how much technology has advanced (and invaded our lives) since the year 2000.
It remains to be seen if viewers who enjoyed the glossy patina of “CSI” will get “Real” with this new version. Sure, crime docuseries are hot, but they are also common. Last year, NBC introduced the nonfiction series “LA Fire and Rescue.” It was among the first shows it canceled.
— Apple TV+ introduces the new six-episode series “Land of Women,” produced by Eva Longoria.
A wealthy Manhattan wine merchant (Longoria) discovers that her husband made a bad deal with dangerous characters. Afraid for her life, she collects her slightly dotty mother (Carmen Maura) and entitled college-aged daughter (Victoria Bazua) and decamps for her mother’s ancestral village in northern Spain, home to quirky characters and a very hot grape harvester.
I don’t know the Spanish word(s) for cookie-cutter, but this contrived comedy, presented in English and subtitled Spanish and Catalan, is unbelievable in any dialect. It may take place in Spain, but we’re in Hallmark country.
Carmen Maura is among Spain’s most acclaimed actresses. She may be familiar to American viewers for her roles in movies directed by Pedro Almovador, including “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” (1988).
TONIGHT’S OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
— Cult victims fill the wards on “Chicago Med” (8 p.m., NBC, TV-14).
— The first round of the 2024 NBA Draft (8 p.m., ABC). Live from Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
— A medical malfunction has dire consequences on “Chicago Fire” (9 p.m., NBC, TV-14).
— Martha Stewart visits an innovative scallop farm in Maine on “Hope in the Water” (9 p.m., PBS).
— A teen’s kidnapping hits close to home on “Chicago P.D.” (10 p.m., NBC, TV-14).
CULT CHOICE
Underworld forces collaborate to catch a child killer (Peter Lorre) whose murders are attracting too much attention from the police in director Fritz Lang’s haunting German-language 1931 thriller “M” (6 p.m., TCM).
SERIES NOTES
“The Price Is Right at Night” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-14) … “MasterChef” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-14) … “Let’s Make a Deal Primetime” (9 p.m., CBS, TV-14) … “Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars” (9 p.m., Fox, TV-14).
LATE NIGHT
Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Hozier are booked on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” (11:35 p.m., CBS) … Jimmy Fallon welcomes Kevin Costner, Chace Crawford and Shenseea on “The Tonight Show” (11:35 p.m., NBC).
Sandra Oh, Retta and Ben Platt visit “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (12:35 a.m., NBC) … Taylor Tomlinson hosts “After Midnight” (12:37 a.m., CBS).
