Review of C.S.I.: Season 2 Part 1 (Box Set)

Introduction

This boxed set contains the first 12 Episodes from the second season of this popular award winning TV Series. Combining elements of classic TV detective storylines and modern forensic science, this innovative series tracks the exploits of the team of Las Vegas Police Department`s Crime Scene Investigators working the night shift.

The Episodes featured in this boxed set are:
2.01 - Burked
2.02 - Chaos Theory
2.03 - Overload
2.04 - Bully For You
2.05 - Scuba Doobie Doo
2.06 - Altar Boys
2.07 - Caged
2.08 - Slaves Of Las Vegas
2.09 - And Then There Were None
2.10 - Ellie
2.11 - Organ Grinder
2.12 - You`ve Got Male

Video

Visual quality is a pretty high quality and comes in a nice widescreen flavour. The picture is crisp and clear with pretty good colour and contrast throughout. It`s certainly of a higher standard than your average TV Series DVD release; the series high production values do translate nicely to DVD!

Throughout the various episodes the series uses a variety of "flashback" style demo`s to illustrate what the characters talk about, something which has become the show`s trademark. While they talk about analysing the dirt you`re treated to a dramatic zooming camera shot through the spectral analyser etc. It works really well and helps the layman understand the scientific side of things while giving the rest of us a flashy bit of camera/CGI work! In general the camerawork through the series is also of a pretty high standard and as I mentioned before, the fact that the production values have been well spent certainly doesn`t do it all any harm!

Audio

Sound again was pleasantly surprising, it comes in a full Dolby Digital 5.1 flavour which is much nicer than the DD2.0 most other TV Series boxed sets usually come in. That said it doesn`t make full use of the rear channels but then it is definitely more than adequate for something that started life on most peoples TV Sets. Music is also used very tastefully and works well throughout; some particular sequences stand out in particular such as removing the girl from the sand box in "Slaves Of Las Vegas" thanks to the striking use of somewhat haunting music.

Features

The extra features of this collection are also quite good and plentiful. What you get is 3 Episode Commentaries (one per disc and all quite good), Trailers, Behind the scenes, Set walk through and a Cast and Crew series of interviews. All 3 of the behind the scene`s style extras are quite entertaining and informative (and much longer than the average DVD extra!); they can however verge slightly into self promotion a bit but not too much overall though. Another minor gripe is that some of the episodes they talk about are actually not featured in this box set and have still to come in the second part of Season 2.

Conclusion

I must admit that I never really caught much of this when it was on TV though this was largely due to the fact it was on Channel 5 and I kept forgetting it was on. Indeed I`ve only ever seen a few episodes before reviewing this and by a strange quirk of timing most of the few I`ve seen were in this boxed set. The downside now of having done this review and watched more of the Series is I`ll probably end up spending more cash now on buying the first Season which is already available on DVD! Bah!

Yep, as you can guess I quite liked it! Its mix of strong characters, good scriptwriting and high production values help separate this from the crowd of the usual "Police drama" suspects. The storylines and scripts are generally what makes this stand out, it`s not afraid to push the boundaries a little now and then but it never forgets not to take itself too seriously. From the more personal nature of the episode "Ellie" and the futility of "Altar Boys" to the quirkier "Slaves of Las Vegas" it has a fair bit of variety to offer. The science does tend to be kept as part of a "Star Trek" type plot device for the most part (i.e. used to suddenly connect the dots) but does give a few interesting insights into the techniques used.

The Series itself is strong and as is the DVD release, now it`s something else for me to spend more money on!