Creative fakery makes ‘CSI: Miami’ look legit

The surfaces are sleek and the lights dim enough for cocktail hour.

The state-of-the-art devices -- costing thousands of dollars each -- would be the envy of a working forensics unit anywhere.

Yet amid all this authenticity, the two dusty palm trees behind two plates of windows are fake, fake, fake. This is the Los Angeles-area studio that subs for the tropical locale of “CSI: Miami.”

The biggest hit of the fall season, “CSI: Miami” follows, like the criminal science it explores, the DNA of the original “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.” At a time when crime dramas proliferate on network TV, none do better than the two named “CSI.”

“CSI” is TV’s reigning No. 1 show; “CSI: Miami” is the highest-ranking new show unveiled last fall. And the two have achieved those heights by being different from most police dramas before them, working along story lines dictated by science, without the dramatic forays of other hourlong shows.

“You need a completely different set of muscles in that the show is process first,” says David Caruso, the former “NYPD Blue” star who is making his first successful return to TV drama as Horatio Caine on “CSI: Miami.”

Yet, he says, “laced into the process is the humanity. So part of the challenge of every scene is to find that moment where your view of the situation or your own specific humanity can bleed through.”

Bleed is right.

Along with the focus on evidence and analysis, the “CSI” franchise has brought a new level of realistic gore to prime time.

It’s evident not only in the corpses analyzed in the show but in the on-set effects studio, where walls are covered with gory “greatest hits” from past episodes. On a table are what looks to be a torso coughed up by a shark; the face of a victim, which peels off to show the brain; and, most chillingly, the body of a young boy -- all in realistic latex.

“In a couple episodes early on, we may have gone a little bit over the line,” says Jonathan Littman, the show’s executive producer. “We haven’t gotten a lot of complaints. People seem to like the gore, which I found astounding, but people really like the blood and guts.”

Says the petite Emily Procter, who plays ballistics expert Calleigh Duquesne, “I think I’m the only one it bothers.”

“You’ve got to tune out,” says Adam Rodriguez, who portrays Eric Delko on the show. “You know it’s not the real thing, but at the same time, the special-effects guys, the stuff they do with these prosthetic arms and stuff like that, it looks so believable.”

Ignoring the gore makes it more realistic anyway, says Rory Cochrane, who plays Tim Speedle. “I think the real guys are desensitized to that stuff anyway. So if you play it that way, you’re right on the money.”

Not only have the two “CSI” shows attracted viewers; they’ve raised interest in forensic science.

“It’s gotten kids very interested in science,” says Marg Helgenberger, who plays former stripper turned investigator Catherine Willows, the female lead of “CSI.”

“I think it’s been pretty remarkable that we’ve had that kind of effect on classrooms and on teenagers wanting to become criminalists as adults.”