Miami returns to stardom

Thirteen years after Miami Vice left, the city is again one of the hottest places in TV. The widely expected C.S.I: Miami may be just the beginning.

By ERIC DEGGANS, Times TV Critic

© St. Petersburg Times
published May 6, 2002

Want to start a long conversation? Just ask former NYPD Blue star David Caruso what he thinks of Miami, his newly adopted home.

"I get the wisdom of Florida," said Caruso, who in June will move himself and his TV/film production company to Miami, where he already co-owns an upscale clothing/home furnishings store dubbed STEAM on Sunset.

"The water and air is in such terrific shape . . . and wisely preserved," he added. "It's a place that is about inclusion. You discover it has everything that New York and Los Angeles have . . . it's like being in Europe without the 11-hour plane ride. So the fact that this fell out of the blue was an amazing, serendipitous turn."

"This" turns out to be an episode of CBS' blockbuster crime drama hit C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigators set in Miami (it airs Thursday at 9 p.m. on WTSP-Ch. 10). It's an open secret that the show is really a pilot episode for a long-planned spin off of C.S.I. to be called C.S.I.: Miami (or, if local officials get their way, the clunkier title C.S.I.: Miami-Dade).

And guess which flame-haired, onetime TV star snagged the starring role as Horatio Caine, head forensic investigator for Miami-Dade County?

"This was so specific and such a part of the direction my life has taken . . . there was really kind of a weird predestination to it all," said Caruso of the chance to play Caine, an intense investigator who teams with C.S.I. regular Catherine Williams (Marg Helgenberger) when a kidnapping case leads her to South Florida.

"We're going to try and bring Florida to America in its natural state," Anthony Zuiker, co-creator and co-executive producer of C.S.I., said of the spinoff series. He hopes to avoid Miami Vice-style drug dealer stories in the same way Las Vegas-based C.S.I. avoids episodes focused on strippers and casinos.

"A lot of the problems (with previous Florida-based series) is that people went right for the cliches," said Zuiker, noting that the idea to base the spin-off in Miami came from producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who filmed the movie Bad Boys there. "We are still in the process of discovering Florida, learning about Miami and figuring out what makes it tick. The key is to play against what people think.

"(We can) show America what they don't know (about Florida) and present it in the C.S.I. format," he said.

Turns out, Caruso and Zuiker aren't alone. When the new TV season starts in September, at least two new prime-time network TV series will be set in Miami -- and the total could rise to as high as four or five.

Besides C.S.I.: Miami, the roster includes: NBC's Miss Miami, starring Roselyn Sanchez (Rush Hour 2) as a FBI agent/beauty contestant; NBC's Good Morning Miami, a half-hour comedy about the lowest-rated morning news show in Miami from the creators of Will & Grace; CBS' Lefty, starring Danny Nucci as a nonconformist boxer-turned-priest, produced by onetime Miamian Sylvester Stallone; and HBO's Baseball Wives, a fictional series about baseball players based in Homestead.

NBC already has committed to airing Good Morning Miami (to be produced in a Los Angeles studio), and CBS won't say for sure, but it's a foregone conclusion that the network will clone C.S.I. -- the one series in recent years to beat NBC's ER on some weeks to become the highest-rated drama on television.

Other shows -- including an untitled series by producers Carsey/Werner/Mandabach (Roseanne, That '70s Show) from material by famed Florida novelist Carl Hiassen -- are still in the pipeline.

So why, nearly 13 years after Miami Vice went to TV heaven, are networks flocking back to Florida?

For Jeff Zucker, a Miami native now serving as president of entertainment for NBC, the answer is simple: Florida is the home of stories you just can't make up.

"Last year's election, the politics of the state, the World Trade Center (attackers' training), the anthrax scares . . . there's no question Florida is a weird place," said Zucker, who began efforts to develop a Miami-based series soon after taking over NBC Entertainment in December 2000.

"It's just a home to so many stories and so much craziness," he added. "It's a great backdrop, and people are taking another look."

Still, networks have tried in the past to clone Florida's unique mix of glamour and outlandishness -- most recently in ABC's Maximum Bob (a 1998 series that unfolded like Northern Exposure in a small South Florida town) and CBS' Grapevine (think Sex and the City in South Beach, circa 2000).

In both cases, viewers failed to find these visions of Florida particularly compelling and cancellation came quickly. So what's changed now?

"I wish I knew . . . I'd be bottling it," said Jeff Peel, director of the Miami-Dade Mayor's Office of Film and Entertainment. "What people tell us is that they're looking for texture. Miami is more than a backdrop, it's a co-star in all of the productions that have taken place here."

Peel cites other reasons: Thanks to Miami Vice, the city has a network of experienced TV crews eager to bring another signature series to town; unlike New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, few TV shows have been set in Florida, offering a look fresh to viewers; and its burgeoning Hispanic population allows TV networks to easily include the country's fastest-growing minority group (of course, Los Angeles has lots of Hispanics and that hasn't helped on-screen diversity much).

A lot of TV work, especially made-for-TV movies, still goes to Canada, where differences in currency values can add 30 percent buying power to a production budget. But the locales there are often dark, barren and cold -- think brooding series such as Fox's The X-Files or Dark Angel -- leaving Miami as a viable alternative for producers seeking a sunnier situation.

And with an aggressive film office that can organize cooperation from a host of local resources -- C.S.I.'s Miami episode used local police as consultants and featured eight SWAT team members in one scene -- Hollywood producers know they're coming to a town that wants their business badly.

"I don't even know if we can handle anything more," marveled Peel, noting that the films Bad Boys 2, Red Dragon and a Denzel Washington movie all are also in production around South Florida. "There may not be a lot of room left at the inn."

For local officials, the bottom line is financial: Peel expects a season of C.S.I.: Miami to bring $50-million to the local economy; HBO's baseball project could reel in another $25-million or so.

And in a state where tourism is king, having five prime-time TV shows regularly showcase the Sunshine State brings promotional benefits that can't be measured.

"In the early days of Miami Vice, the chamber of commerce types were galled that a show (about cops chasing stylish drug dealers) would be based there," said Jennifer Parramore, St. Petersburg-Clearwater film commissioner. "Within a year, everybody changed their tune (because) it was such a hot show, it did more to inspire vacations to Miami than anything else, even after it got canceled. I guess crime does pay, in a way."

In the Tampa Bay area, film commissioners say they've seen little TV series interest and a dip in the area's bread-and-butter, TV commercials. But they're encouraged by recent announcement of local production on a $12-million Jerry Springer movie and heightened interest from film producers (Walter Industries has even offered to let producers demolish their building near I-275 -- as long as the filmmakers pay demolition costs).

Of course, even when producers agree to set a series in Florida, that doesn't guarantee production dollars will flow to the local economy. Sitcoms are traditionally filmed on standing sets with few outside scenes, so even shows located in cities outside Los Angeles such as Frasier (Seattle) and Good Morning Miami are filmed in Hollywood.

Similarly, much of NYPD Blue and ER are filmed in Los Angeles, with special scenes filmed on location (in New York and Chicago, respectively) to add atmosphere. Even C.S.I. films much of its episodes at a studio in Santa Clarita, Calif., far from its Las Vegas locale.

But if C.S.I.: Miami takes flight, those involved expect nearly all production to take place in the city. "We know its expensive, but we want to give it a shot," Zuiker said of the Miami location. "The city has such a distinctive look, we feel it would be doing a disservice not to shoot everything in town."

For Caruso, the spinoff is more than a chance to spend time in a city he loves. It's a chance to repair a reputation seriously damaged by his controversial 1994 departure from NYPD Blue, when the star openly expressed contempt for the series, walking out the door in his final scene and off the studio lot without saying goodbye.

A string of forgettable movies and a failed CBS series, Michael Hayes, followed -- showing Caruso that success in Hollywood might be a trickier affair than it initially seemed.

These days, he's well aware that C.S.I.: Miami might be his last, best shot at the kind of "it guy" popularity he enjoyed in his NYPD Blue heyday.

"When you're on the air four times and people start offering you movies, it's a little freaky . . . It's a challenging environment to get your footing in," said Caruso, 46, of his meteoric success on Blue.

"(Now), when you're David Caruso, you have responsibility to calm the fears of anybody that is gracious enough to include you," he admitted. "It's important to me now that people I work with have a positive experience and understand how grateful I am."

Part of that gratitude involves working on a series sure to show off his adopted home.

"The timing is just so right for something significant (in TV) to happen in South Florida," Caruso said. "To me, Miami isn't just a great place to do a show . . . I'm a resident, and I really want to be here."

-- To reach Eric Deggans call (727) 893-8521, e-mail deggans@sptimes.com or see the St. Petersburg Times Web site at http://www.sptimes.com.

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