CSI: Crime Scene Investigation-Season 2-Episodes 2.13-2.23 (2000)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Trailer-PC Game Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio Scene Selection Animation Booklet Featurette-The CSI Tour Featurette-Shooting Locations Featurette-The Making Of A Hit Featurette-Tools Of The Trade Trailer-Season 3 DVD-ROM Extras-Recovered Evidence
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	466:37 (Case: 497)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Multi Disc Set (3)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Lou Antonio Matt Earl Beesley Danny Cannon Duane Clark
Studio Distributor	Imagine Entertainment	Starring	William L. Petersen Marg Helgenberger Gary Dourdan George Eads Jorja Fox Eric Szmanda Robert David Hall Paul Guilfoyle
Case	Gatefold
RPI	$89.95	Music	John M. Keane

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	Yes
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Picking up where the first half of this season left off, the second half of C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation: Season 2 breaks down like this:

Disc 1

    13. Identity Crisis (42:16) – After serial killer Paul Millander slipped through Grissom’s fingers, the birthday murders start up again. However, the trail leads right to a respected judge and a lonely woman in a shack.

    14. The Finger (41:47) – A severed finger and an apparent kidnapping takes a nasty twist when Catherine gets mixed up. But is there more than a simple ransom demand going on here?

    15. Burden of Proof (42:34) – A body dumped at the body farm for experiments on corpses leads to the discovery of an abused child and an unusual method for killing.

    16. Primum Non Nocere a.k.a. Icings (42:25) – A murder at an ice hockey match brings up more suspects than the CSI team can follow up, and exposes the oversexed side of the ice hockey arena. Meanwhile, Warrick investigates the drug overdose of a blues musician and finds himself becoming involved with the lead singer of the group.

Disc 2

    17. Felonius Monk (40:30) – The murder of a group of Buddhist monks points at one of their own. But was this a crime of repression or a hate crime? At the same time, Catherine begins investigating the death of her old stripper friend who was murdered.

    18. Chasing The Bus (41:37) – A bus crash leaves the CSI team to piece together a collision and wreck that cost many lives.

    19. Stalker (42:35) – When a girl is discovered dead inside her locked house, the CSI team suspect a crazed stalker. When a psychic comes forth, Grissom is at first suspicious. But it soon becomes apparent that this murder has something to do with Nick.

    20. Cats In The Cradle (42:44) – The murder of an old woman in her house points at her son and her hostile next door neighbour. But the killer may be smaller than the CSI team at first thought. At the same time Nick and Sara investigate a bomb planted in a car.

Disc 3

    21. Anatomy Of A Lye (42:45) – A body reduced to ash by lye is uncovered at a park and points towards a hit and run accident. Meanwhile, Nick investigates the death of a woman who apparently drowned in the desert.

    22. Cross-Jurisdictions (44:49) – A murder and kidnapping in Las Vegas brings Catherine and Warrick to Miami, Florida where they meet the C.S.I. Miami team and attempt to solve the crime.

    23. The Hunger Artist (42:35) – When a dead model is found dumped under an expressway the body is linked to a homeless woman. And Grissom makes a nasty discovery about himself.

    This second half of C.S.I.: Season 2 is on par with if not slightly better than the first half. There are some real standout episodes here, like Primum Non Nocere, Felonius Monk and The Hunger Artist, but these are just my personal choices. Some of the scenes in that last episode were enough to give me the creeps.

    The character development certainly comes to the fore, particularly Grissom (William Petersen) who moves past his dispassionate scientific analysis to expose his humanity underneath. There are none of those one-liner quips that Horatio Caine (David Caruso) spiels off at the end of a C.S.I.: Miami episode. Grissom’s humanity is in his actions, his contemplations and his frailty. While the other characters still need a little fleshing out, Marg Helgenberger gets a chance to evolve her character Catherine in Felonius Monk and Warrick shows his human side in Primum Non Nocere.

    Of course, anybody who actually works in forensics in Australia will probably find this show incredibly frustrating, with the DNA testing backlogged for years and the understaffing and budget cuts that make the scientific approach to law enforcement pretty much an exercise in self-defeat. But for anybody who doesn’t, this show does work as a bit of fun.

    If you already have the first half, then it seems kind of absurd not to add this to the collection. For those who don’t know it, this new take on the ‘whodunnit’ crime story is certainly addictive and worth a viewing. And the nice transfer (see below) certainly makes it worthwhile.

Video

    Presented in the original aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, this transfer is a touch better than that done for the first half of the season.

    Colour is again spot on, given the directors use a variety of filming techniques and low-level light scenarios. And thankfully there is shadow detail to match, so there is none of this ‘lost in the darkness’ of the image business.

    The image is highly detailed, with great textures, only marred somewhat by light graininess which is probably a product of the film stock and the low lighting rather than a transfer fault.

    There are no severe MPEG artefacts, and only minimal film-to-video transfer artefacts such as background aliasing and faint moire effects. Definitely nothing to write home about.

    Dirt is minimised to a few random white dots that you will see if you are actively looking for them, but really do not detract from the viewing experience.

    There are only English subtitles to choose from. They are white with a black border, and follow the dialogue fairly closely without being verbatim.

    For each of these discs, the dual-layer pause is in between the episodes, with two episodes per layer.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    As with the first half, the only audio on offer is the English 5.1 Dolby Digital re-mix, but it’s a good one so I’m not complaining.

    The dialogue is always clearly reproduced, and there is only the occasional audio sync fault, generally from awkward to film outdoor sequences where audio was likely redone in the studio later. Most of the time you would miss this unless you were actually looking for it.

    There is a great range here, particularly when the music comes in. We get some great bass use that is really noticeable.

    Surround information itself is excellent although not exceptional, and I felt that the first half of the season was better for directional cues and creative use of the sound field. While there is a consistent surround presence here, there are fewer instances to point to as great examples.

    The subwoofer is given less call for use in this second half of the season, although a sudden storm gives it a light workout. Still, better to have it than not to have it.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    The producers of the DVD have done a nice job of providing us with some extras for the show, although most of them are on Disc 3

Menus

    All menus are presented in 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced. The main menu is a CGI recreation of a forensics lab and has a 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack. The episode menus have moving chapter selections with about ten seconds of footage, and three chapters per episode, with a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo audio track.

Booklet

    This comes with a glossy 16-page booklet with episode summaries and promotional artwork.

Featurette: The C.S.I. Tour (8:33)

    Presented in 1.33:1, 2.0 Dolby Stereo, this is a walk through the real C.S.I. lab in Las Vegas, Nevada, looking at the various pieces of equipment used.

Featurette: Shooting Locations (6:27)

    Presented in 1.33:1, 2.0 Dolby Stereo, this is a look at how the team find locations to shoot the show around Nevada.

Featurette: The Making of A Hit (11:37)

    Presented in 1.33:1, 2.0 Dolby Stereo, this is a look at the making of the hit series.

Season 3 Trailer (1:40)

    Presented in 1.33:1, 2.0 Dolby Stereo, this is a trailer for the next season.

Recovered Evidence (DVD-ROM)

    You can use this DVD in your PC or Mac to hook up to an exclusive Internet website and download screensavers and background art for your computer.

    Now that I have both parts of Season 2 in my possession I can make a fair comparison between the R1 and the R4 release.

    From what I can tell, the releases are identical in terms of their audio commentaries and featurettes, but the R4 has some promotional material that the R1 release lacks, such as the previews and the DVD-ROM access. On the other hand, the R1 release has both an English and a Spanish 2.0 Dolby Stereo soundtrack.

    Given that the R1 release can be purchased in one set at a comparatively cheap price, this might be an incentive for some, and given the differences are merely in promotional content it might be something to think about. However, the picture and sound quality in R4 is really something, especially for a TV release.

    In light of the marginal extras advantage of the R4 split release taken as a whole I am going to give this one to R4. You may feel differently.

    C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation - Season 2, Part II rounds out the second series nicely.

    The video transfer is better than the first half of the season, with only the graininess as a minor side issue.

    This 5.1 Dolby Digital remix is good, but I think the first half was better on sound.

    The extras were decent, although most of them were incorporated into the release of the first half of the series.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall