CSI Crime Scene Investigation Volume 2 (Eps 13-23)
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DVD Review
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Review
Review
I recently received these disks for review from Momentum’s PR Company and I have to confess that I’ve been putting off watching and reviewing them, as I really didn’t expect the program to be my kind of thing. Not that I had ever seen the series before, it’s just I had built up a vision in my head of it being like one of those awful American “Police Chase” or “When Kittens Go Bad” fly on the wall type programs.
Thankfully once again I’ve been shown not to make assumptions about a program / film before watching it myself (you’d think I’d know better by now). As what we actually have here is a rather good crime solving drama series. Set in Las Vegas the program centers on the local Crime Scene Investigation Unit, a team of forensic scientists, who while being linked closely to the local police force are not actually police themselves.
Every week, the team use the latest high tech equipment and methods to try and find the perpetrators of a particular crime from the tiniest pieces of evidence left at the crime scene. Normally there at least two major plot lines running for each episode, so the 40 odd minutes of every episode is normally pretty eventful and manages to keep sufficient suspense through to the end of the episode. The only downside of this, is that there so much going on you don’t get a great deal of character development.
I think this is most apparent from the fact that even though this box set contains the second half of series one and I haven’t seen any of the first half. I was able to get a feel for each main character within just one or two episodes, there doesn’t seem to be any long running storylines relating to any particular character(s). Not that this is necessarily a big problem, most episodes have a good twist at the end and there were very few of them that I could work out before the last few minutes.
Visually CSI is very impressive for a TV series, it’s produced by Jerry Bruckheimer (Armageddon, Con Air, The Rock) and it certainly shows. Occasionally it uses visual effects to demonstrate a CSI members deconstruction of a crime. Sometimes these can be a little gruesome and include things like an inside view of a bullet passing through someone. Overall the program has a very well polished feel to it.
The program isn’t perfect however; the fact that every week they manage to find one tiny piece of incriminating evidence can become a bit much. Also considering they are not police officers, they have an awful lot of police powers, interviewing suspects, making arrests etc. However if you can ignore these little stretches of the imagination, you can get a lot out of this series, I certainly did and would be very interested now in seeing the first half of this series.
Video/Audio
I remember reading somewhere (although I can’t find the source now) that this program was originally filmed in 14:9 widescreen. If this is the case then it’s a shame that this UK DVD release is presented in 4:3 fullscreen as it’s not how the program was meant to be watched. This point aside the video quality on this release is perfectly adequate, not staggeringly good but adequate enough.
The audio track is Dolby Digital 2.0 (Stereo) and while good it’s a shame we don’t get a 5.1 Mix. With such a well-polished TV program a full 5.1 track would have really added something to the DVD. You won’t be disappointed with what’s here, bit it definitely could have been better.
Extras
Disk 1 has a featurette that lasts for just over two minutes, although given the fact that it’s nothing more than an extended trailer it’s a good job it doesn’t run any longer.
Disk 2 contains some production notes, these are basically around twelve pages of text notes on the life story of CSI creator Anthony E Zuicker rather than actual production notes about the program.
Disk 3 – Now this is more like it. Disk 3 has a selection of extended interviews with cast & crew. Totalling around 40 minutes, you can view the interviews separately or all together. They are reasonably in depth and each person talks about their role in the program, how it has effected them personally etc.
Overall
While this is a good, entertaining program I think the DVD release is a little weak and overpriced. With a recommended retail of £39.99 you’re looking at nearly £80.00 to get the whole first season. When you compare this to the upcoming Babylon 5 release it starts to look quite expensive.
Extras are a little thin on the ground and the Audio/Video quality are OK, but nothing to write home about. If you’re a real fan then this is currently the only way to get hold of a DVD copy, however you might want to wait and see what the upcoming Region 1 version has to offer.
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