CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION
The Complete Seventh Season
DVD Review by David Blackwell

DETAILS: 1045 minutes (24 episodes on seven discs), 7 audio commentaries, six featurettes

VIDEO: 1.78:1 (Anamorphic Widescreen)
AUDIO: English 5.1, Spanish 2.0 Dolby Surround
Subtitles: English Close Captioning, Spanish (featurettes only)

STUDIO: CBS DVD/ CBS Productions/ Paramount/ Alliance Atlantis/ Jerry bruckheimer Productions
RELEASE DATE: 11-20-2007

DISC 1- BUILT TO KILL Part 1 & 2/ TOE TAGS/ FANNYSMACKIN'
DISC 2- DOUBLE CROSS/ BURN OUT/ POST MORTEM/ HAPPENSTANCE
DISC 3- LIVING LEGEND/ LOCO MOTIVES/ LEAVING LAS VEGAS/ SWEET JANE

DISC 4- REDRUM/ MEET MARKET/ LAW OF GRAVITY/ MONSTER IN A BOX
DISC 5- FALLEN IDOLS/ EMPTY EYES/ BIG SHOTS/ LAB RATS (AKA WHILE THE CAT'S AWAY)
DISC 6- ENDING HAPPY/ LEAPIN' LIZARDS/ THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE DOMINMATRIX/ LIVING DOLL
DISC 7- six Behind-The-Scenes featurettes

CSI Season 7 was the year to try new things. In a way, it is the season of evolution. The series featured a multi-episode arc with a serial killer, the Miniature murder, who would leave miniature crime scene sets at the crime scenes or even mail one to Grissom before the crime happens. Also William Peterson took off time to do a play and it opened the door to introduce a new character, Kepler (Liev Schreiber), a man with a dark past in a four episode arc.

The season mixed in a little character development for the CSI team from little remarks to showing more scenes further developing the Gil Grissom and Sara Sidel relationship. Even Lady Heather makes a return for THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE DOMINATRIX. The guest star casting sometimes works like Roger Daltrey (LIVING LEGEND) and sometimes not like Kevin Federline (FANNYSMACKIN'). CSI hasn't grown long in the tooth yet and season 8 so far continues to experiment (and grow) like season 7 did. The experimentation show CSI isn't running out of ideas, but the episode with the talking corpses (TOE TAGS) does proves that whether you love or hate that episode.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
Audio commentaries were featured on seven episodes with producers, writers, and directors of the series: BUILT TO KILL Part 1, FANNYSMACKIN', LIVING LEGEND, SWEET JANE, LAW OF GRAVITY, LAB RATS, and LIVING DOLL. Like other season sets, the featurettes are superior to the audio commentaries. Too bad the actors didn't contibute to the audio commentaries this time.

Six featurettes are on disc 7:
INSIDE BUILT TO KILL- A look at the two parter and use of

MINATURE MURDERS- a featurette on the season long Miniature Murders arc.
WHO ARE YOU?: INSIDE LIVING LEGEND- a behind-the-scenes look at how the script came about and showing the make-up they put on Roger Daltrey when he agreed to geust star in the episode.
LAS VEGAS: THE REAL CRIME SOLVERS- the best featurette of the set as actor Robert David Hall (Doctor Robbins) gives a tour of the real Las Vegas crime lab from the various departments examining different elements collected from the crime scene. The crime scene investigators collect the evidence while the lab techs do the work of examining the evidence (the CSIs on the show do both). I wish they spent more time on the crime scene investigators instead of mostly focusing on the lab work.

THE EVOLUTION OF CSI: Season 7- a look at the various changes for season 7 including William Peterson taking a break to do theater and the challenges it presented by bring in a new character (played by Liev Schreiber) for four episodes.
SMOKE AND MIRRORS: DIRECTING FEATURE TELEVISON- various directors of CSI episodes are interviewed as they say the show has to stay ahead of the pack and evolve the show's style. They are able to film so much and use different camera techniques on the schedule of 8 1/2 to 9 days per episode due to a great crew.

FINAL ANALYSIS: CSI Season 7 is great season with a few great featurettes. I still wish they would include deleted scenes and a gag reel for the sets.

this DVD review is (c)11-20-2007 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission. send all comments to lord_pragmagtic@hotmail.com  


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