A pre-emptive strike in defence of CSI: Miami

When Frank fires up the exegesis engine on matters pertaining to the haunted fish tank, it gets ugly early doors for the logic-defying likes of Stephen Poliakoff (though I enjoyed 'Friends and Crocodiles' for all its gaps....was it a ham-fisted attempt to craft a paean to a type of capitalism that's light on its feet and long on intellectual wealth?), so he'll be able to train his eyes on the police procedurals that are really getting his goat, with 'CSI: Miami' coming in for some particular stick.  It will be developed at length through later posts and comments, but I think 'Miami' is the little albeit massively expensive show that could.  Critically, the programme's a widely derided ginger stepchild, but 'Miami' started out from a very, very low baseline: a preening male lead, a literally shaky female lead, an oddly robotic female supporting player was matched in bizarreness by another actor who conversed with cadavers.  And, to round things out, two male players playing investigators in a manner so inept that they could barely flesh out a convincing character if they'd been amalgamated.  So far, so bad...but dammit if the rejigged writing and production staff didn't somehow turn things around a little, particularly in terms of ekeing out halfway acceptable performances from most of its leads, once Kim Delany and Rory Cochrane exited the show.   Adam Rodriguez still isn't great but some of his tetchy interactions with Rex Linn's cop (underrated actor in my book) have helped him out a little and Emily Procter is, at least, one of Jerry Bruckheimer's more effective translucent blondes (fans of 'Cold Case' and 'Close to Home' will get what I'm talking about...friend Jerry is channeling Hitchcock in casting terms).   Sofia Milos is easy on the eyes, of course, but it would be nice to see her show some of the wit and passion she brought to any amount of thankless TV roles over the last ten years.  Outrageous quality claims cannot be made on behalf of any series that features David Caruso as a Cryptkeeper doppelganger with arms akimbo and any number of way out plot contrivances,  but I respect the show for having the plums to retool when needed.   'Miami' doesn't dwell on supposed sexual deviance as a surefire invocation of Thanatos in the way that 'Vegas' does nor has it committed the mortal sin of splitting its cast into two separate shifts and turning two great, likeable characters in Grissom and Willows into a smug Jedi Master and short-tempered harridan.  It's also a lot lighter in visual terms than the Gothamesque mise en scene of 'New York', but it is set in Florida, so Fincheresque gloom would not be a good look.