Before receiving this DVD for the second season of CSI, I had never seen even a second of an episode. All I knew was that it was a slightly more gory Law & Order.

This show, however, turns out to focus much more on the recurring characters of the show than Law & Order. These characters include Grissom played by William L. Petersen, Catherine played by Marg Helgenberger, and Sara played by Jorja Fox (who is SUCH a fox! Honestly, each episode she gets hotter and hotter).

The show is also educational in that the writers of the series use actual Crime Scene Investigators so that every way of collecting evidence and every little science fact is true to life. Having said this, I have to say that not only was it easy to jump in at the beginning of the second season, but it was even easier to get involved with the characters and really want to watch all 23 episodes.

Episodes like "Elie" and "Stalker" get deep into the main characters, while episodes like "Chaos Theory" about a missing college student and "Anatomy of a Lye" about a victim who is chemically burnt beyond recognition really showcase the skill and attention to detail always needed in forensic evidence.

While there are of course some corny parts to the show, overall, it’s quite entertaining. What are these alleged ‘corny’ parts you ask? Well, when I speak of them I am neither referring to the puns that often have to do with how someone died nor the occasional very emotional, very dramatic scene that seems slightly out of place (in fact, these actors are actually good enough to pull off both these aspects of the show and keeping it real). I even forgive the fact that every character seems to be a walking, talking encyclopedia with the knowledge they spurt out with every piece of evidence. The corny parts I am talking about are the over-explanations that are coupled by some philosophy or motto given by William L. Petersen (little known fact: Petersen is unofficially reprising his role as the investigative crime-stopper in Manhunter which is the movie that was remade under the name of Red Dragon where his character was played by Ed Norton). Anyway, these Confucius type sayings only remind me of the fact that the main character bears a striking resemblance in looks and voice to America's Most Wanted's John Walsh. It's just that nobody really talks like that. This was my only serious criticism of the show itself though, and it's not like it debilitated the show at all.

For a show like this which has such a large, die-hard following, I feel I should be spending my time reviewing the special features that this DVD set boasts rather than the episodes themselves. So here goes…

There are some

big hits and a couple big misses as far as these go, but I'd still say they are guaranteed to satisfy any curiosity one has in respect to this show. I found the commentary wildly fascinating. It turns out that much like the field of forensic evidence, every detail of the show is significant. Even more than other series', every detail from lighting, to props, to camera filters, to character idiosyncrasies is not just deliberate, but deliberate for very specific reasons.

The other special features are somewhat interesting, but not as much as they could be. Instead, features like The CSI Tour, CSI – Shooting Locations, Tools of the Trade, and The Making of a Hit are either too detailed or too short and not detailed enough. The former is boring, but the latter seems almost extraneous to the DVD, as it comes across as more of an advertisement for the show instead of something for fans to become more involved with.

The featurette on the make-up, music, and special effects is pretty interesting however, it only shows one example of each aspect of the show and just shows how they did it. A more in depth discovery of these salient elements of CSI would be much better. It is cool though to finally find out how they do that thing where the camera zooms in extra close to some orifice of a dead body only to end up inside it, and then re-enacting the death. That was really cool in fact.

Alas these are all the special features there are and commentary is only provided for three episodes. So these aren't why you would buy the DVD. Why you would buy the DVD is that despite the fact that each episode is a mini-mystery there is a lot of replay value. You will actually want to see the whole season again to catch little details that build up to the slight cliffhanger we're given in the second season finale. It's kind of like watching Fight Club or The Sixth Sense a second time, just to see the clues to the surprise endings. So you can enjoy CSI over and over again, and that alone (plus a little insider information given by the commentary) make it worth having.

In addition, we get to see the beginnings of CSI: Miami with David Caruso and that guy from Empire Records in the second to last episode: "Cross-Jurisdictions". Oh also the fact that you see some nipple in the episode "Slaves of Las Vegas" make it a sweet DVD too!!!

Season Grade B+

DVD Grade: A-

Overall Grade: A-