Review of C.S.I.: Season 6 Part 2 (Box Set)

Introduction

The continuation of Series 6, the first part of which was reviewed elsewhere on this site, sees the consolidation of the team reunion as the repercussions of aftermath of Nick`s incarceration at the hands of Walter Gordon recedes.

It`s now business as usual for the team, although the odd personal detail comes out for a few of the main characters. Oddly enough, it`s mystery man Grissom who we find out much more about this season. In some respects, it`s not nearly enough but there`s a bit of a surprise (that really isn`t) late on.

Forensically the cases are as diverse as ever, but some seem a little darker than usual. Pirates of the Third Reich about genetic experimentation a la Josef Mengele and also re-introduces Lady Heather immediately springs to mind here.

Whilst there is a cliffhanger of sorts, set up in the penultimate episode, the final scene of this series is clearly the real cliffhanger in the eyes of the writers. Surprising? Not really. It`s more shocking that something that`s hinted at in places throughout this season is suddenly brought into the open.

Video

As usual, good picture. Anyone who`s seen CSI before knows the score by now.

Audio

Not sure if it`s just this set, but somehow the soundtrack seems a lot punchier. It could just be my ears, but the music seems to have a lot more presence (whether it be Nine Inch Nails or Ry Cooder). Most of the dialogue is through the centre speakers but there is good use of the surrounds for ambient sounds.

As per the previous set, this is nicely subtitled and sometimes even including information on the music used, which is a nice if inconsistent move.

Features

Other than the episode commentaries, the extras are typical of the CSI sets in that they are short and to the point for the most part and last around 5 minutes each (give or take…).

Apparent Cause Of Death - a look at how sfx wizard Matthew W.Mungle puts together the impressive array of corpses for the autopsy scenes.

Gadgets & Gizmo`s - Richard Catalani, Senior Technical Consultant, walks us through six of the gadgets and test instruments used within this series. As usual, this is brief (about a minute per item, including context clip for the episode) but informative.

Coroner`s Reports - focuses on Doc Robbins (Robert David Hall) and Big Dave (David Berman) from the morgue.

Season 6 Trajectory - an inside look at S6 and the overall success of CSI

Commentary on `Killer` by Naren Shankar (Exec. Producer), Kenneth Fink (Director) and Dustin Lee Abraham (Writer) - ok-ish commentary.

Commentary on `Poppin` Tags` by Dustin Lee Abraham (Writer) and George Eads - a quite amusing commentary, which seems to be the case when they let Nick Stokes behind the mic, but a bit of a letdown when George Eads (and Abraham) reveals he is a huge hip hop fan. Not quite sure whether Eads or Nick Stokes has the worst taste in music…

Conclusion

Something I didn`t really notice when watching this series on TV was that Nick Stokes goes through two transformations this season. The first as `moustache boy` was dealt with in the last set, but here he turns in `Emo boy` with his hairstyle, which is a bit of a surprise. Thankfully that doesn`t last long either…

Still, the one thing that can be said about this series is that the writers are trying to raise the humour quotient. And whilst Stokes` hair is pretty funny (not to mention the moustache), they haven`t left it there. Hodges (Wallace Langham) is really coming to the fore in the same way that Greg (Eric Szmanda) did previously, but for different reasons. The other lab techs are also getting in more of the action, and even get their own episode the following season, but Hodges is extremely snobbish and funny with it.

The cast and writers also seem to have a lot of fun with reality TV based episode `I Like To Watch`. The dialogue for this episode contains a few references to lab tests taking 6 hours but being cut to 30 seconds. Grissom also shows his disdain at being requested to repeat his lines for the camera and also comments that `there are too many forensic shows on TV.` Arf!

This is a good second half to the season and it will be interesting to see where they take the personal stuff next season given the finale…