Review of C.S.I.: New York Season 2 Part 1

Introduction

No piracy ads! No piracy ads! This is the sound of a reviewer dancing a happy jig. Upon inserting the Season 2 test discs, all I had to do was wait for the menu to boot up before indulging in a little death and detection. I already like this season more than the first. Now that the second season has come to a conclusion on Channel Five, this would be the ideal time for fans to relive the highs and lows of the season through that shiny circular medium that we all know and love (and lightly buff and keep scratch free). Momentum unleashes the first half of season 2, presented on 3 discs without any extras. It took a while, well 23 episodes for CSI: NY to grow on me, and I eventually grew to appreciate its slick presentation, sharp writing, and entertaining mysteries, and I also grew fond of the characters. It was a tentative growth though. I haven`t exactly been diligent with the series just broadcast, and the other members of the CSI family have remained a mere passing smudge of ink in my TV guide. Will the second season on DVD rekindle my passion for the show?

CSI, in case anyone is unaware refers to Crime Scene Investigation. It`s what we enlightened Brits simply refer to as forensics, wisely foregoing the temptation to use a jumble of letters where a word would suffice. It`s those weird suited people who set up tents outside would be bomb-making factories. They suit up as if they were going into Chernobyl; only it is to stop them from contaminating the crime scenes, as they sift through the evidence for clues. They are the people, who are able to deduce from your toenail clippings, that you are a left-handed violinist, partial to pomegranate juice, drive a Lexus and that you killed Professor Plum in the library with a battery powered toothbrush. Of course this is Hollywood, so the only concession our tanned and toned heroes make to the sanctity of evidence is a pair of latex gloves, but the idea is the same.

In CSI New York Detective Mac Taylor leads a dedicated team of Crime Scene Investigators. His second in command is Stella Bonasera, and with them are Danny Messer and Aiden Burn. Joining them in season two is new recruit Lindsay Monroe, and enticed from his mortuary by the glitz of the crime scene is Sheldon Hawkes.

There are twelve episodes with this first half of Season 2, including Manhattan Manhunt, the second part of a CSI Miami crossover.

Summer in the City
Grand Murder at Central Station
Zoo York
Corporate Warriors
Dancing with the Fishes
Youngblood
Manhattan Manhunt
Bad Beat
City of the Dolls
Jamalot
Trapped
Wasted

Video

CSI: New York gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer. It`s a recent television programme, so there are few complaints, if any about the image quality. It`s clear and sharp throughout, and any grain seems to be a stylistic choice. This does result in the occasional jaggie, and hint of moiré, but the picture looks superior to that broadcast by Channel Five. New York certainly plays a big part in the feel of the episodes, despite them being shot on both sides of the US. The cityscape is very much a character in the show, and informs the mood and feel of the stories. The show also benefits from a muted autumnal palette. Colours are subdued and the show has a very cold impersonal feel that matches the metropolis it is set in.

Audio

A splendid DD 5.1 soundtrack makes the best of this television show, with atmospheric use of the surrounds both for ambience and spot effects. There is plenty of use of the LFE too. The Who provide the theme tune, `Baba O`Riley`, and the show`s music is generally of high quality. There`s plenty of contemporary music licensed for the show, and I guess we can be thankful for the fact it is a new show. Any older show would have had the tunes replaced with muzak. The dialogue is clear throughout, and there are English subtitles for all of the episodes.

Features

Nothing at all with this half of the season, except that each disc has a menu page devoted to reminding us that Baba O`Riley is a song by The Who, as if it isn`t mentioned in the credits for each episode. No Play All option either.

Conclusion

It`s more of the same from the first half of the second season of CSI New York. They really have to stop releasing these things by halves. I was all set to talk about some potential growth in episode continuity, with Zoo York given an open-ended conclusion. But not having seen the second half of the season, I can`t tell if that ending is picked up on. Still, the characters do change and grow in this second season. Aiden Burn makes a decision that affects her career, Sheldon Hawkes decides to become a field investigator and get in on the crime scene fun, while new recruit Lindsay Monroe has to endure 12 episodes of good natured ribbing, smelly assignments and cracks about a country girl in the big city.

CSI really is television for dummies. It follows a strictly regimented routine, rarely deviating from the path, and if it actually does so by the slightest iota, it`ll probably be advertised weeks in advance as a `special episode`. There are a couple of those in this boxset. But you still get a fair collection of episodes featuring a couple of corpses, a couple of crimes, and our plucky heroes sifting through the evidence, with an abundance of `scientists gazing thoughtfully through microscopes to rock music` montage. (Why is it that the CSI bods only ever investigate murders? What about bank robberies, burglaries, car thefts, kidnapping and all the other crimes that can be solved by a quick distillation of DNA?) I`m not arguing that CSI isn`t a slick, brilliantly edited, sharply written and well-acted show. It is some of the slickest television around today. But it could never be accused of being challenging or thought provoking. Also the regularity of the shows, the trademark clichés actually get laughable at times. For example, do you want to know when the opening credits will roll? Wait for Mac to make a wisecrack about the corpse. These range from quick one-liners to the sort of painful puns that Austin Powers delivers after dispatching one of Dr Evil`s minions. Every episode, like clockwork, aerial shot of the city, scene with the corpse to be before he or she snuffs it, CSIs turn up, Mac makes wisecrack about the stiff, Baba O`Riley time!

The fun is to be had with the various worlds that the corpses used to inhabit, and that the CSIs have to deal with. This season sees a free climber fall off the Empire State Building, a plastic surgeon hoist on his own petard, a guy fed to the tigers, corporate kung fu artists, a dead dancer, a dead cradle snatcher, dead weathergirl, dead doll repairman, mayhem at a roller derby, a dead supermodel and much more. While the investigators stay the same, the variety of the show is in the corpses. It`s also apparent that the show has established itself, as the calibre of guest stars approaches the `Where have I seen them before` level. I managed to spot, Lori Petty, Holly Valance, Mia Sara, and one of the Bridges clan.

As before, the main characters are developed in the background, with growth that will no doubt make a difference in the second half of the season. Stella has a man in her life that makes an early appearance in the second episode, but remains confined to the other end of her mobile phone for subsequent episodes. The same goes for Danny Messer, whose current flame has a thing for Coldplay. Later on his brother turns up, but also remains off-screen for now. The episodes are slick and efficient, and enjoyable for the most part. There are a couple of stinkers though. Corporate Warriors was painfully bad, as CSI belatedly jumped on the Matrix bandwagon, and indulged in some egregious wire-fu. The second stinker is one of those `special` episodes, though not for reason of content. Manhattan Manhunt is a crossover episode with CSI Miami, which sees the NY CSIs team up with Horatio Caine from Miami to track down Henry Darius, a mass murderer who is cutting a swathe through high society in New York. Aside from the fact that this episode showcases two acting styles in Gary Sinise and David Caruso, which need to remain as far apart as television networks allow, the drawback of this story is that is a Part 2. Part 1 cannot be found on this boxset, instead delve deep into your wallets and fork over some cash for Vol 4.1 of CSI: Miami. Given that this will have 12 episodes of Horatio Caine fun and frolics, I can forego the experience, but your mileage may vary.

As with CSI: NY 1.1, my preferred episodes lie at the end of the boxset, with Jamalot and Trapped ones that I found particularly entertaining. Aside from the attractions of the roller derby, Jamalot has the case of a corpse found with the last chapter of a novel scrawled all over the skin. It`s a creepy and compelling story that is actually of more interest than the A story, while Trapped is another one of the `special` episodes. "This week, on a special episode of CSI: New York, Danny Messer gets trapped inside a panic room with a corpse, and he has to solve the crime by improvising with the materials at hand to decipher the clues, all before the air runs out."

In my pantheon of television, CSI NY sits safely in the `will watch it if it`s on` category. It`s strictly chewing gum for the brain, keeping the old grey matter idling over with some routine and repetitive television, with just enough character development to keep it out of the eighties TV category. It`s fast and efficient television designed for the MTV generation, and while I enjoy it immensely, I don`t rush to watch it again. Indeed, those episodes on this boxset that I had seen broadcast initially, invariably had me nodding off before the big reveal. The presentation of the episodes in this boxset is superb, but there are no extras this time around. Also if you want to watch Felony Flight, the first part of Manhattan Manhunt, you`ll have to look up a whole other boxset. That is larcenous, after all that is what extras are for. CSI: NY, gets the Ronseal Reviewer Cliché, "Does exactly what it says on the tin…"