Unlike the rest of the country, summer in Miami doesn't mean outdoor music concerts or weekends in our beach house. This is the season when most of us enter a sweat-induced hibernation and catch up on our TV watching. So excuse us if we're more than a little pissed off that this is also the season of reruns. Yankees get to spend their blizzard days curled up with Lost, while we're forced to look under a rock for a DVD of Deadwood.
And all this TV research has reminded us what a bad rap Miami gets. Show after show, we're presented as either a city of vapid, coke-snorting, gun-toting club chasers or a town of cranky geriatrics. And we're not even talking about the obvious reputation-killers Miami Vice and the Golden Girls. Here are five more TV shows that managed to paint our city in a pretty bad light:
1. Empty Nest: Many of us might not even remember this show. It ran from
about 1988 to 1995 and was basically about a doctor whose daughters
move in after his wife dies. It was a real upper. We think it was
really created because the Golden Girls went off the air and Americans
needed something new to love (a la Desperate Housewives after Sex and
the City.) But this show made Miami's residents look like a bunch of
senior citizens looking for a discount. Yes, the Golden Girls didn't
make Miami look hot and happening, but at least they were funny, and
Blanche was getting more ass then most kids in their 20s.
The Damage: At the end of
the day, Empty Nest was funny, but it definitely helped further the maxim,
"Miami: Where Old People Go To Die."
2. Brooke Knows Best: Most of us can remember where we were the first time
we saw the delightful show Hogan Knows Best. It was a cute little
reality series about a white trash family that was a tad amusing. Then,
out of the blue, they decided to pick up their mess of a family and
relocate to Miami. A few months later, the tragedy that was Brooke
Knows Best hit the airwaves. VH1 had obviously been drinking the day
they thought it was a good idea to give Hogan's daughter her own
spin-off show. Not only did her wardrobe reflect the clearance rack at
your local Wal-Mart, but the oversized D-lister walked into our city
like she owned the place. With quotes like, "I am actually not that
much into voting--I think it's kinda crazy that a women is running,"
coming out of her mouth, it was really time for us to ask her to leave.
The Damage: God forbid people think dumb is just something you catch the minute you
breath in the warm Miami breeze.
3. Miami Social: What a hot mess this show was. The reality show basically
focused on seven people you had never heard of. Bravo tried so very
hard to make their ridiculously normal lives look cool. The cast was
pretty much hot Hardy Hill and a couple more middle-agers going out
every night to any spot in Miami that wanted some free airtime. Lets
be honest: Are there really 30-somethings going out seven days a week?
The only cast member under 30 was the terrible Ariel Stein. God, where
to start? My favorite Stein quote had to be his request to get "the fat
girl out of his table." Yes, the quote was offensive, but honestly the
fact anyone wanted to sit at Stein's table is the more shocking.
The Damage: Miami
Social did one thing and one thing only: it took the magic out of the
magic city.
4. CSI: Miami: Yes, this show is entertaining. This crime drama is so
entertaining, in fact, that it has won multiple awards and is going on
its ninth season. But has anyone really taken a good look at the show?
Have you, as a resident of Miami, ever thought to yourself, where in
Miami are they? They aren't in Miami at all. Am I the only one this
kind of upsets? There are the occasional shot of the 1-395 or maybe a
glimpse or two of South Beach, but other than that it really should be
called CSI: Somewhere in California. And why is the head of the Miami
forensics team a ginger that randomly takes his glasses off in a
dramatic fashion with a super creepy voice?
The Damage: Not only is it not filmed
in Miami, but CSI: Miami makes our police department look like a bunch of
creepers from Catch a Predator.
5. Basketball Wives: When you call a show, Basketball Wives, you'd expect to maybe see some actual marital partners of famous ballers. Well, you're wrong there. The wives are actually a couple of NBA baby mommas, ex fiancés, groupies, Shaq's ex main squeeze, and only one actual wife. The VH1 series followed these ladies around as they lunched, bemoaned their constant man troubles, and relished in their genuine love of verbally assaulting one another.
The Damage: If women from the 305 didn't have the gold-digger stereotype before, the basketball wives (or more accurately, the ladies who have slept with b-ball players), pretty much stuck a permanent shovel right in our well-manicured hands.
