I think the downhill must have happened during Season 6. It wasn’t bad like some other shows. But I just plain lost it after they brought in Elizabeth Berkley. It’s not that I don’t like the actress. I liked her in Saved by the Bell, but that was ages ago. It was getting repetitive for me when they had sneaked in the whole Horatio had a son from the past. It just got quite repetitive with how his brother was BUT, of course, it was different. Still, suddenly everyone had children from the past springing up. Exaggerating here, but just to show my annoyance. I got over that since it was just part of the background plot. But like I said, what sent me over the edge was Julia Winston and her ongoing appearances throughout. I didn’t think it added to the story or added more hype or whatever else like how people think it would be necessary to crank up to the hype or change the formula. I just got over the death of Marisol OR barely and they had to irritate me even more with bringing in some psycho? Even if she was a character supposedly WAY in the past, WAY before the Marisol days, but I actually wanted to believe no one could melt Horatio’s heart except for Marisol–even if it was just wishful thinking (since it seemed like he had something going on with his sister-in-law too–NOT outright have it but the looks between them were too obvious). What became a bigger joke was how Horatio supposedly know what Julia had done (but they didn’t have solid proofs to link her to some of the murders yet) and still aided her throughout at times? I got it it was hard to severe ties since there was his son, Kyle. But it was a waste of time. The story made me annoyed with Horatio. And I swear I liked him from the start, along with the rest of the cast. That reminded me if they wanted him to be alone, why were they taunting us with the whole Marisol story? I read that it was an unexpected storyline and they had fun working that story arch out. But what was the freaking point of adding in Julia Winston and Kyle’s story arch? I rather they focus on the cases–like they still do but that overlapping of stories was getting really annoying, like ‘in your face’ type of thing. And while I’m at it, why did they take Kim Delaney out? I read it was because she lacked chemistry with David Caruso. But really? It was supposed to be a crime show. They didn’t have to click on everything to work together. I liked her. Kicking her out and then adding in some weird side thing with Yelina was just ugh for me. I liked Yelina, but not in that way that the story was implying. If they wanted to have some continuation with showing how Horatio care for people and his family (or how he cited throughout), why didn’t they have more scenes with him and Madison and Susie? Madison was sooo cute. Those short, subtle scenes (after the initial introductions–of course) made my day more than the overly dramatic scenes since Season 6 with Julia and Kyle. Okay, so if they wanted to add Horatio’s son, go ahead with Kyle. Yet adding in his psycho mother too? Why didn’t they just make up a vague story about it and then move on? The dramatic story arch failed. At least for me.
Oh yeah, if they wanted to create more stories, why didn’t they just make up more story arches for Wolfe? He didn’t really have a romantic story arch (at least not up to the point that I’m still catching up on). Well, he had dated Natalia in the past but that didn’t work out since they weren’t clicking. That was okay with me. I didn’t want too many romances anyway since I was in for the cases. AND yes, I do understand they must create side stories for the characters too. But too much on Horatio! They were dragging him through the mud already. By the time Season 7 rolled around, Horatio had dropped from my list of favorite male characters, and Wolfe became No. 1, followed by Frank Tripp. I don’t know who else the writers are out to get after almost killing Wolfe’s career (several seasons ago with the eye incident and then the gambling problems later on) and then Eric. I read that Marisol was brought back for an episode in Season 10. Was that compensation for all the damages they’d done by bringing in Julia Winston? Because apology is not accepted. Not from me. Even if I would be looking forward to that and would love seeing a little of Marisol again.