‘Miami’ Goes ‘Back To Basics’

Executive producer Ann Donahue takes CSI: Miami forward in its eighth season by looking to the past. (Spoilers after the jump.)

With the show entering season eight, Donahue and the rest of the creative team behind Miami took the opportunity to bring the show back to its roots, starting with the season premiere. “Out of Time” literally revisits the past as fans get a glimpse of how the team first came together. “[T]he way we approached this season was to go back to basics,” Donahue explained. “That’s why we went back 12 years in time to the beginning in a way to reinvigorate ourselves and then, in turn, our actors loved it and then hope our audience will.”

“It just came to us that way and we all thought it would be so interesting to see this team before they were this team,” Donahue said of the decision to include the flashback. “It’s like when you want to go back and see yourself at your first day of kindergarten or your first day of high school and see who you were and how you met and really how shiny you were back then. Emily Proctor (Calleigh Duquesne) made this choice where she played it so optimistic and brand new knowing that she really hadn’t seen a dead body; she was really so charming. David Caruso (Horatio Caine) was just great because he was discovering science and his character was realizing the science of the future.”

“We also, of course, got to see where his sunglasses came from,” Donahue added. “In the episode, Eric Delko (Adam Rodriguez) is still a tow-truck driver and he and Horatio keep meeting up because there’s so much water in Miami that tow-truck guys are always pulling stuff out of the waterways. Usually a dead body. And Eric keeps telling him, ‘When I pull out a really great pair of sunglasses I’m going to give them to you.’ It’s sweet and charming and we’ve done about 170 episodes and this one, if not the best then it’s one of the best.”

Adding new characters has to be done slowly, Donahue said, and Miami will be introducing a few new faces during season eight. “We actually have two new characters – one being Eddie Cibrian (Jesse Cardoza) and one being Omar Benson,” she explained. “When you mix a cake, you do it slowly and so we show Eddie in the flashback episode… actually I don’t want to call it flashback because it’s not that. It doesn’t feel like a flashback, it feels like a genesis, a beginning. But we see Calleigh on her first day and it’s Eddie Cibrian’s character’s last day. We see him momentarily and then in episode two he is coming back. We see him in the first five minutes of episode two and then a few members of CSI: Miami are taken hostage.”

Cibrian and Benson are joining the cast, and Rodriguez will have a slow exit during season eight. Despite the cast shake-ups, Donahue could not fathom Miami without its leading man. “The show rises and falls on David’s back and I will say with modesty that it’s sometimes the number one show in the world and I think that has to do with David,” she said. “People adore him. I cannot imagine the show without him and I wouldn’t want to.”

Donahue offered a glimpse into some of the cases the Miami team would work this season. “We’re doing one where someone is able to kill someone from 30 miles away,” she shared. “I won’t tell you how but it’s a fabulous mystery and the science is great. We’re doing one with a really interesting phenomenon about food in America. It’s getting to the point where corporations literally trademark our food and they own it… like they own the seeds. There’s a really good mystery where someone gets sick from E. coli and our people push to prove that it’s a form of negligent homicide. Then we do an homage to The Hangover where we have two guys who wake up with blood all over them and the groom is missing.”

As CSI Files previously reported, Miami will also be doing a three-series crossover with fellow franchise members CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and CSI: New York. The episodes will air during the first week of November sweeps. This season, Donahue said, “We’re telling a lot of great stories and a lot of great mysteries.”